SYNTHESIS OF PMMA THROUGH PHOTO-INDUCED ATOM TRANSFER RADICAL POLYMERIZATION USING NOVEL PERYLENE-PHENOXAZINE-BASED ORGANO-CATALYST

Tóm tắt

Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is synthesized using a novel organo-catalyst derived from 10-(perylen-yl)-10H-phenoxazine (PHP) under UV irradiation at an ambient temperature. The study aims to demonstrate the capability of PHP in synthesizing PMMA via photo-induced ATRP and suggests a proper molar ratio of reactants engaged in the synthesis process to obtain outcome PMMA in terms of molecular weight and low polydispersity. In the O-ATRP process, the influence of the reaction conditions, including the molar ratios of catalyst and monomer, the initiator content, solvents, and the reaction time on the polymerization of PMMA were studied. The obtained PMMA was characterized using gel permeation chromatography (GPC) measurements to reveal the effect of the individual reaction condition on the outcome polymer. The experiment result shows a high monomer conversion of MMA with the novel PHP organo-photocatalyst (~75%). Among the investigated parameters, the concentration of PHP photocatalyst and polymerization time strongly affect the conversion and polydispersity of the obtained PMMA. Meanwhile, the concentration of the initiator is found to not significantly impact the outcomes of the O-ATRP. Furthermore, the characteristics of PMMA considerably depend on the polarity of the solvent. The higher conversion resulting in a higher molecular weight could be achieved with the solvent having lower polarity. With the increase in conversion, the PHP photocatalyst-based O-ATRP was demonstrated to produce well-controlled PMMA, which has polydispersity lower than 1.5. The optimized reacting system with a molar ratio of [Monomer]:[Initiator]:[PHP] = [100]:[1]:[0.05] under the UV irradiating period of 8 hours produced PMMA with Mn = 28,360 and polydispersity Đ = 1.25, respectively.