Controlled Radical Homopolymerization of Vinyl Acetate and Vinyl Benzoate by Reverse Iodine Transfer polymerization (RITP)

The use of molecular iodine (I2) in controlled radical polymerization, called reverse iodine transfer polymerization (RITP), represents a new, straightforward way to prepare controlled macromolecular architectures. In this paper, homopolymerization of vinyl acetate (VAc) and vinyl benzoate (VBz) initiated by 2,2’-azobis(isobutyronitrile) (AIBN) at 70 ˚C in the presence of iodine has been investigated. PVAc and PVBz with predetermined molecular weight and relatively low polydispersity was successfully synthesized. Same as free radical bulk polymerization, polymerization rate of VAc was much higher than VBz polymerization rate in the bulk RITP