화학공학소재연구정보센터
Macromolecular Rapid Communications, Vol.33, No.20, 1770-1774, 2012
Snowballing Radical Generation Leads to Ultrahigh Molecular Weight Polymers
Styrene is the classical monomer obeying zero-one kinetics in radical emulsion polymerization. Accordingly, particles that are less than 100 nm in diameter contain either one or no growing radical(s). We describe a unique photoinitiated polymerization reaction accelerated by snowballing radical generation in a continuous flow reactor. Even in comparison to classical emulsion polymerization, these unprecedented snowballing reactions are rapid and high-yielding, with each particle simultaneously containing more than one growing radical. This is a consequence of photoinitiator incorporation into the nascent polymer backbone and repeated radical generation upon photo-irradiation.