Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP) has been a powerful tool to synthesize well-defined functional polymers, which are widely used in biology, drug/gene delivery and antibacterial materials, etc. However, the potential toxic residues in polymer reduced its service life and limited its applications. In order to overcome the problem, in this work, a novel polymerization system of activators generated by electron transfer for atom transfer radical polymerization (AGET ATRP) for synchronous separation of the metal catalyst and byproduct of reducing agent was developed, using thiol-grafted cellulose paper (Cell-SH) as a solid reducing agent. The polymerization kinetics were investigated in detail, and the "living" features of the novel polymerization system were confirmed by chain-end analysis and chain extension experiment for the resultant polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA). It is noted that the copper residual in obtained PMMA was less than 20 ppm, just by filtering the sheet-like byproduct of the reducing agent.
Keywords: AGET ATRP; metal catalyst and byproduct of reducing agent; synchronous separation; thiol-functionalized cellulose paper.