Control of the polymer molecular weight in atom transfer radical polymerization with branching/crosslinking

This work demonstrated good system livingness and control over the polymer molecular weight in an atom transfer radical polymerization with branching/crosslinking. Methyl methacrylate was copolymerized with different concentration levels of a newly synthesized breakable divinyl crosslinker. The polymer samples were hydrolyzed under an acidic condition to yield soluble primary chains. The primary chains showed a linear increase in the molecular weight with the monomer conversion similar to that of methyl methacrylate homopolymers and had narrow molecular weight distributions with polydispersities lower than 1.2.