Direct through anionic,cationic, and radical active species: Terminal carbon–halogen bond for “controlled”/living polymerizations of styrene

In this work, we examined the synthesis of novel block (co)polymers by mechanistic transformation through anionic, cationic, and radical living polymerizations using terminal carbon–halogen bond as the dormant species. First, the direct halogenation of growing species in the living anionic polymerization of styrene was examined with CCl₄ to form a carbon–halogen terminal, which can be employed as the dormant species for either living cationic or radical polymerization. The mechanistic transformation was then performed from living anionic polymerization into living cationic or radical polymerization using the obtained polymers as the macroinitiator with the SnCl₄/n‐Bu₄NCl or RuCp^*Cl(PPh₃)/Et₃N initiating system, respectively. Finally, the combination of all the polymerizations allowed the synthesis block copolymers including unprecedented gradient block copolymers composed of styrene and p‐methylstyrene. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2019 , 57, 465–473