Synergistic Effect of 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium Hexafluorophosphate and DMSO in the SARA ATRP at Room Temperature Affording Very Fast Reactions and Polymers with Very Low Dispersity

Joana P Mendes; Fábio Branco; Carlos M R Abreu; Patrícia V Mendonça; Anatoliy V Popov; Tamaz Guliashvili; Arménio C Serra; Jorge F J Coelho

doi:10.1021/mz5002383

Synergistic Effect of 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium Hexafluorophosphate and DMSO in the SARA ATRP at Room Temperature Affording Very Fast Reactions and Polymers with Very Low Dispersity

ACS Macro Lett. 2014 Jun 17;3(6):544-547. doi: 10.1021/mz5002383. Epub 2014 May 27.

Authors

Joana P Mendes¹, Fábio Branco¹, Carlos M R Abreu¹, Patrícia V Mendonça¹, Anatoliy V Popov², Tamaz Guliashvili¹, Arménio C Serra¹, Jorge F J Coelho¹

Affiliations

¹ CEMUC, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Coimbra , 3030-790 Coimbra, Portugal.
² Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, United States.

Abstract

An unusual synergistic effect between 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate (BMIM-PF₆) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) mixtures is reported for the supplemental activator and reducing agent atom transfer radical polymerization (SARA ATRP) of methyl acrylate (MA) using a catalytic system composed by sodium dithionate (Na₂S₂O₄) and CuBr₂/Me₆TREN (Me₆TREN: tris[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]amine) at room temperature. To the best of our knowledge, the use of ionic liquids (IL) has never been reported for the SARA ATRP. The kinetic data obtained for a broad range of target molecular weights revealed very fast polymerization rates, low dispersity values (Đ < 1.05) and well-defined chain-end functionalities.

Abstract

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