Simulation of Rate Retardation in RAFT Polymerization of Styrene with Low RAFT-Initiator Ratio

Bulk polymerizations of styrene (St) were carried out in the presence of three reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) agents benzyl dithiobenzoate (BDB), cumyl dithiobenzoate(CDB), and 1-phenylethyl dithiobenzoate (PEDB) under low ratio of RAFT agent to initiator. The kinetic model was developed to predict polymerization rate, which indicates that the RAFT polymerization of St is a first-order reaction. In the range of experimental conversions, the plots of -ln(1-x) against time t are approximately linear (x is monomer conversion). The kinetic study reveals the existence of strong rate retardation in RAFT polymerization of styrene. A coefficient K_r is defined to estimate the rate retardation in the RAFT system considering the assumption that the retardation in polymerization rate is mainly attributed to slow fragmentation of the intermediate radicals. K_r relates to the structure of RAFT agents as well as the concentrations of RAFT agent and azobis isobutyronitrile (AIBN). For a certain RAFT agent, the value of K_r is enhanced by the increase in the initial concentration of RAFT agent and the higher ratio of RAFT to AIBN. With the same recipe for different RAFT agents, the increasing trend for the values of K_r is BDB<PEDB<CDB.