Iron-Mediated ICAR ATRP of Styrene and Methyl Methacrylate in the Absence of Thermal Radical Initiator

Initiators for continuous activator regeneration in atom transfer radical polymerization (ICAR ATRP) is a new technique for conducting ATRP. ICAR ATRP has many strong advantages over normal ATRP, such as forming the reductive transition metal species in situ using oxidatively stable transition metal species and a lower amount of metal catalyst in comparison with the normal ATRP system. In this work, the iron-mediated ICAR ATRP of styrene and methyl methacrylate are reported for the first time using oxidatively stable FeCl(3) · 6H(2) O as the catalyst in the absence of any thermal radical initiator. The kinetics of the polymerizations and effect of different polymerization conditions are studied. It is found that the polymerization of styrene can be conducted well even if the amount of iron(III) is as low as 50 ppm.