Producing bimodal molecular weight distribution polymers through facile one‐pot/one‐step RAFT polymerization |
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| Authors: | Hongjuan Jiang Lifen Zhang Jian Qin Wei Zhang Zhenping Cheng Xiulin Zhu |
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| Institution: | Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China |
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| Abstract: | Well‐defined bimodal molecular weight distribution (MWD) polystyrene and polystyrene‐b‐poly(acrylonitrile) were successfully synthesized using a pair of mono/difunctional trithiocarbonate RAFT agents 1 and 2 via one‐pot RAFT polymerization. The kinetics of RAFT polymerization for styrene in bulk with a molar ratio of St]0:AIBN]0: 1 ]0: 2 ]0 = 1200:1:2.5:2.5 was studied at 75°C. The results indicated that the system showed excellent controllability and “living” characteristics to both higher and lower molecular weight fractions, providing an efficient and facile way to producing bimodal MWD (co)polymers with both controlled molecular weight (MW) and MWD in molecular level, and the plausible mechanism was discussed in this work. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2012 |
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| Keywords: | bimodal polymer kinetics (polym ) trithiocarbonate living radical polymerization one‐pot/one‐step method reversible addition‐fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) |
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