Radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate in the presence of isotactic poly(methyl methacrylate). VIII. Influence of template concentration

Abstract

AbstractThe influence of template concentration on the radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate along isotactic poly(methyl methacrylate) template was studied. The polymerizations were carried out on three template polymers with different molar masses in dimethylformamide at −5°C. The initial polymerization rate increased linearly with template concentration until the distribution of template chain segments became homogeneous. At that critical concentration a strong increase in the polymerization rate was observed, whereas still higher template concentrations had only a slight effect on the polymerization rate. The polymerizations were stopped when the weight ratio of formed polymer and template was equal to one. The viscometrically determined molar mass of the formed polymers showed a remarkable behavior in the low template concentration region. It was obviously related to the molar mass of the template polymer and was lower than the molar mass found for blank polymerization. This decrease in molar mass was most pronounced in the case of the lowest template molar mass. It is suggested that nondegradative chain transfer occurring near a template chain end is responsible for this decrease. An increase in the molar mass occurred at the critical concentration, similarly to the change of polymerization rate. However, at still higher template concentrations, where template coils started to overlap each other, the molar mass of the formed polymers increased further. The growing chains could leap from one template chain to another and attain a greater chain length than the blank polymerizate.