Photoinduced electron transfer-reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (PET-RAFT) polymerization of acrylonitrile in miniemulsion

Abstract

Photoinduced electron transfer-reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (PET-RAFT) polymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) in miniemulsion was reported. PET-RAFT polymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) was successfully accomplished with 4-cyanopentanoic acid dithiobenzoate (CPADB) as chain transfer agent (CTA), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as emulsifier, hexadecane (HD) as co-stabilizer and TiO2 as photocatalyst at 25 °C. The linear first-order kinetic plots were observed in miniemulsion with different amounts of SDS. Excellent temporal control was demonstrated by switching between ON/OFF states multiple times, and the prepared PAN macro-CTA was used successfully to perform the chain extension experiments, indicating high retention of chain end functionality. Furthermore, the obtained PAN was amidoximated with NH2OH·HCl. The Cd2+ was extracted with amidoxime (–C(NH2)=NOH) from aqueous solutions. The maximum adsorption of 98.6% Cd2+ with 400 mg of the adsorbent was observed at pH 6.0 and an initial Cd2+concentration of 4 mmol/L.