The incorporation of side reactions into pseudostationary polymerization, 1. The closed solution of a kinetic scheme comprising chain-transfer to monomer or solvent

A procedure is developed that allows the calculation of chain length distributions of polymers prepared by periodic modulation of the initiation process, considering termination by disproportionation and chain transfer. For the case of a (pseudostationary) laserpulse initiated polymerization process a closed solution can be derived for the chain length distribution (cld) of dead polymer and its O^th, 1^st and 2^nd moments. By analysis of the detectability of the “extra-peaks” appearing in the cld (which represent the key for the determination of propagation constants) as a function of the parameters chosen the optimum conditions can be predicted for experiments.