Studies on the development of branching in ATRP of styrene and acrylonitrile in the presence of divinylbenzene

Branching atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of styrene and acrylonitrile was attempted in the presence of divinylbenzene targeting toward soluble branched copolymer. The kinetics and the development of branching with monomer conversion were studied in detail. Gas chromatography (GC), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) coupled with multi-angle laser light scattering (MALLS), proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy and intrinsic viscosity determination were used to monitor the polymerization process and characterize the obtained copolymer. Analysis of conversion of reactants, the growth manner of molecular weight with monomer conversion and GPC traces proved that the primary chains with low polydispersity formed mainly at the early stage and then were linked in a statistical manner to start the branching at the middle or late stage. The more the branching agent was used, the earlier the branching occurred, and too much higher level of branching agent resulted in gelation. For the selected ratio of [t-BBiB]/[DVB]/[St]/[AN] = 1/0.9/15/15, with monomer conversion less than 40%, primary chains with low polydispersity formed from the polymerization of St, AN and DVB, and only a part of the primary chains contained pendent vinyl group. When monomer conversion was up to 40%, the pendent vinyl groups participated in polymerization, resulting in the linking of the primary chains statistically to start the branching. The branching became significant at monomer conversion up to 50%, giving rise to a steep increase in molecular weight and width in molecular weight distribution. As the polymerization proceeded, the polymer composition gradually approached the feed composition, identifying the obtained branched copolymer provided some gradients are in its primary chains. Finally, branched copolymer bearing about six primary chains was prepared at monomer conversion near to 80%, its absolute weight average molecular weight was about 8.87 × 104.