Laser single pulse initiated RAFT polymerization for assessing chain-length dependent radical termination kinetics

Abstract

A novel method combining RAFT polymerization with pulsed-laser initiation for determining chain-length dependent termination rate coefficients, k t, is presented. Degenerative chain-transfer in RAFT enables single-pulse pulsed-laser polymerization (SP-PLP) traces to be measured on systems with a narrow radical distribution that remains essentially unchanged during the experiment. SP-PLP-RAFT experiments at different polymerization times allow for determining kt as a function of chain length via classical kinetics assuming chain-length independent kt. © 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.