Photo-induced controlled/living copolymerization of styrene and acrylic acid and determination of reactivity ratios

Abstract

A controlled/living photopolymerization of styrene (St) and acrylic acid (AA) mediated by FeCl3·6H2O/tetramethylethylenediamine (TMEDA) was performed in N,N-dimethylformamide using 4-bromomethylbenzophenon (4-BMBP) as photoinitiator at room temperature under UV irradiation. 4-BMBP was first used as ATRP initiator and photoinitiator. A well-defined poly(styrene-co-acrylic acid) with predetermined molecular weight and narrow molecular weight distribution was obtained. The kinetic rule of controlled free radical photopolymerization of St and AA was studied. The kinetic results showed that the obtained random poly(St-co-AA) copolymers produced narrow polydispersity (PDI) within the range of 1.25–1.32 when the conversion was beyond 16.5 %, which was characterized by GPC. The plots of number average molecular weight versus conversion and ln([M]0/[M]) versus time were linear, indicating a controlled/living photopolymerization process. The system proceeded under mild and environmentally friendly conditions. The effects of initiator, catalyst, ligand, and vitamin C(VC) concentrations on polymerization process were investigated. The copolymers were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR). The methods of Mayo-Lewis (ML), Kelen-Tudos (KT), and Yzrielev-Brokhina Roskin (YBR) were used to calculate the monomer reactivity ratios of controlled/living photopolymerization of St and AA at low conversions under selected conditions. The monomer reactivity ratios of St and AA were calculated to be r St = 0.82 and r AA = 0.30, respectively in this system. The living characteristics were demonstrated by chain extension experiment.