Fundamentals And Practical Aspects Of Living Radical Polymerization

Fundamentals and some practical synthetic aspects of controlled radical polymerization will be discussed in the lecture. Effect of slow initiation, termination, and transfer on kinetics, molecular weights and polydispersities will be described in the quantitative way. Conditions for typical radical polymerization and for controlled radical polymerization will be compared. The concept of reversible deactivation of growing radicals in order to control molecular weights, polydispersities and terminal functionalities will be presented. Four systems will be discussed in detail: (1) Reversible cleavage of covalent species (2) Reversible formation of persistent radicals (3) Reversible redox systems (4) Degenerative group and atom transfer. In all four systems the effect of dynamics of exchange between dormant and active species on kinetics as well as on the evolution of molecular weights and polydispersities with conversion will be presented. jg p.2.