Living free radical polymerization (RAFT) of dodecyl acrylate: Chain length dependent termination, mid-chain radicals and monomer reaction order

The reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer-chain length dependent-termination (RAFT-CLD-T) methodology was employed to map chain length dependent termination rate coefficient, k t i , i , in dodecyl acrylate (DA) free radical polymerization at 60 and 80 °C. The chain length of the propagating DA radicals was controlled by the RAFT agents methoxycarbonylethyl phenyldithioacetate (MCEPDA) and dimethoxycarbonylethyl trithiocarbonate (DMCETC). In addition, the reaction order of the polymerization process with respect to the monomer concentration was determined at both temperatures and found to be close to 1.55 (60 °C) and 1.75 (80 °C), commensurate with the increased presence of mid-chain radicals. A modeling study demonstrates that the obtained data for the reaction order can be transferred to RAFT polymerization systems. The RAFT-CLD-T procedure was modified to account for the determined reaction orders. The obtained chain length dependence of kt in dodecyl acrylate polymerizations is in good agreement with the composite model for chain length dependent termination, showing two distinct regions: For the initial chain-length regime up to a degree of polymerization of 20, kt decreases rapidly with α (in the expression k t i , i = k t 0 · i − α ) being close to 1.15 at 80 °C. At chain lengths exceeding 20, the decrease is significantly less pronounced (α close to 0.22 at 80 °C). At 60 °C, the chain length dependence in both regions is somewhat more pronounced. The RAFT agent DMCETC may not be as suited to map out CLD kt values in the DA system, since it induces some limited rate retardation effects.