Poorya Bigdeli - Polymerization Engineering Department, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran,
Mahdi Abdollahi - Polymerization Engineering Department, Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran,
Mahmood Hemmati - Polymer Science and Technology Division, Research Institute of Petroleum Industry, Tehran, Iran
Mohammad Barari - Polymer Science and Technology Division, Research Institute of Petroleum Industry, Tehran, Iran

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

Controlled Polymerization, Reverse Iodine Transfer polymerization (RITP), Vinyl Acetate, Vinyl Benzoate