Premium
Iodine‐Transfer Polymerization (ITP) of Ethylene and Copolymerization with Vinyl Acetate
Author(s) -
Wolpers A.,
Baffie F.,
Verrieux L.,
Perrin L.,
Monteil V.,
D'Agosto F.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.202008872
Subject(s) - copolymer , molar mass , vinyl acetate , polymer chemistry , polymerization , reactivity (psychology) , ethylene , polymer , chemistry , polyethylene , iodine , ethylene vinyl acetate , chain transfer , molar ratio , radical polymerization , organic chemistry , catalysis , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology
Controlled radical polymerization of ethylene using different commercially available, cheap, and non‐toxic iodo alkyls is performed by iodine transfer polymerization (ITP) under mild conditions (≤100 °C and ≤200 bar). The formed well‐defined iodo end‐capped polyethylene (PE−I) species is very stable upon storage. Narrow molar‐mass distributions (dispersities around 1.6) were obtained up to number average molar masses of 7300 g mol −1 . The ethylene copolymerization by ITP (ITcoP) with vinyl acetate allowed to form a broad range of poly(ethylene‐ co ‐vinyl acetate) (EVA) containing from 0 to 85 mol % of VAc unit. In addition, EVA‐ b ‐PE block copolymers or EVA‐ b ‐EVA gradient block copolymers with different content of VAc in the blocks were obtained for the first time using ITP. Finally, reactivity trends were explored by a theoretical mechanistic study. This highly versatile synthetic platform provides a straightforward access to a diverse range of well‐defined PE based polymer materials.