Microwave‐assisted nitroxide‐mediated radical polymerization of acrylamide in aqueous solution

The present work describes a combination of microwave irradiation as a heating source and water as a solvent for carrying out a living/controlled polymerization of acrylamide. Reasonable results were obtained for a nitroxide‐mediated radical polymerization (NMP) with a combination of a conventional hydrosoluble radical initiator and a β‐phosphonylated nitroxide. The microwave enhancement of the polymerization was found to depend on the mode of irradiation, i.e., either a dynamic (DYN) mode or an pulse (SPS) mode. The former mode corresponded to a dynamic control of the temperature by way of a high initial microwave power, and in this case, no specific microwave effect was observed. On the other hand, in the SPS mode, which is a pulsed power mode, the result showed a strong acceleration of the polymerization process (>50 times) without the loss of the living/controlled polymerization characteristics, which is relevant with a reinitiation of the polyacrylamide macroinitiator even after 100% of conversion. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem, 2009