Microwave-Assisted Nitroxide-Mediated Radical Polymerization of Acrylamide in Aqueous Solution

Julien Rigolini (1) , Bruno Grassl (1, 2) , Laurent Billon (1) , Stephanie Reynaud (1) , Olivier François Xavier Donard (1)

1 IPREM - Institut pluridisciplinaire de recherche sur l'environnement et les matériaux
2 PCP - Physico-chimie des polymères

The present work describes a combination of microwave irradiation as a heating source and water as a solvent for carrying out a living/controlled polymerization of acrylamide. Reasonable results were obtained for a nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization (NMP) with a combination of a conventional hydrosoluble radical initiator and a phosphonylated nitroxide (SG1). The microwave enhancement of the polymerization was found to depend on the mode of irradiation, i.e., either a DYN mode or an SPS mode. The former mode corresponded to a dynamic control of the temperature by way of a high initial microwave power, and in this case, no specific microwave effect was observed. On the other hand, in the SPS mode, which is a pulsed power mode, the result showed a strong acceleration of the polymerization process (> 50 times) without the loss of the living/controlled polymerization characteristics which is relevant with a re-initiation of the polyacrylamide macroinitiator even after 100% of conversion.

Mots clés: microwave; acrylamide; controlled/living polymerization; Nitroxide Mediated Polymerization

Domaines: Polymères

Julien Rigolini, Bruno Grassl, Laurent Billon, Stephanie Reynaud, Olivier François Xavier Donard. Microwave-Assisted Nitroxide-Mediated Radical Polymerization of Acrylamide in Aqueous Solution. Journal of polymer science. Part A-1, Polymer chemistry, 2009, 47, pp.6919-6931. ⟨10.1002/pola.23731⟩. ⟨hal-00469605⟩