Photo-living radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate by 2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl in the presence of a photo-acid generator

The novel photo-living radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) was determined using 2,2’-azobis(4-methoxy-2,4-dimethylvaleronitrile) (AMDV) and 4-methoxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl (MTEMPO) in the presence of bis(alkylphenyl)iodonium hexafluorophosphate (BAI). The polymerization provided a comparatively narrow molecular weight distribution in the range of 1.4–1.7. The resulting PMMA contained no BAI fragments in its structure and had the 1-cyano-1,3-dimethyl-3-methoxybutyl radical and MTEMPO at the 1:1 molar ratio. The experimental molecular weight was in close agreement with the theoretical one when the initiator efficiency was taken into consideration. The plots of ln([MMA]₀/[MMA]) vs. time and the molecular weight of PMMA vs. the conversion and vs. the reciprocal of the initial concentration of AMDV showed linear correlations, indicating that the polymerization proceeded in accordance with a living mechanism. It was found that the polymerization had a photo-switching ability, because the polymerization was interrupted by turning off the irradiation, and then restarted by the irradiation again.