Polymerization of organized monomers

Abstract

The current explanations of olefin and vinyl monomer polymerization propose that monomer molecules are successively added one by one to the growing polymer chain. This may be true if the monomer molecules exist as individual species in a polymerizing system, e.g. in dilute solutions of monomer. There are cases, however, in which monomer molecules are organized: bulk liquid monomer, solid monomer, a monomer monolayer adsorbed on a support, etc. Various supra-molecular species and particles of monomer exist in such cases. In the 1960-ties, Semenov, Kargin and Kabanov proposed a theory of organized monomer polymerization. In the last 25 years, our research group has further developed and applied that theory to various polymerizing systems: the radical polymerization of compressed ethene gas, the radical polymerization of liquid methyl methacrylate, olefin polymerization by transition metals and by Al-based catalysts. An outline of the main achievements are presented in this article.