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Aqueous room temperature metal-catalyzed living radical polymerization of vinyl chloride
Virgil Percec1, Anatoliy V Popov, Ernesto Ramirez-Castillo
1Roy & Diana Vagelos Laboratories, Department of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6323, USA. perec@sas.upenn.edu
Abstract:
This paper describes the room-temperature living radical polymerization (LRP) of vinyl chloride in H2O/THF in the presence of Cu0 or CuI salts as catalysts, tren or PEI as ligands, and iodoform as initiator. The disproportionation reaction 2CuI + L --> Cu0 + CuII(L) is the crucial step, as it continuously provides the active species for both the initiation (Cu0) and the reversible termination step (CuII). Mn was found to increase linearly with conversion and is in good agreement with Mth, with the Mw/Mn being approximately 1.5.
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