An application of spin trapping to radical polymerizations

Radical polymerizations and copolymerizations were carried out in the presence of phenyl tert-butyl nitrone(PBN) and tert-nitrosobutane (t-BuNO), and the structure of the spin adduct formed was investigated by ESR spectroscopy. PBN adducts gave the same ESR pattern, and the variation of the splitting constant was not large enough to warrant its use for the structure assignment. Therefore, the subsequent trapping experiments were performed with t-BuNO. The polymerization mixture of representative monomers showed esr patterns that are indicative of the propagating radical being trapped. These trapped radicals were not necessarily very stable and, in most cases, disappeared after long reaction periods. In the case of α-methyl substituted monomers, additional nine-line spectra were observed which were attributed to trapping of the radical species formed by hydrogen abstraction from the α-methyl group. The tert-butyl radical which was formed by decomposition of t-BuNo was probably responsible for the hydrogen abstraction. In the case of styrene, methyl acrylate, and methyl methacrylate, characteristic ESR patterns of the propagating radicals were observed with polymers which were prepared in the presence of t-BuNO and purified by reprecipitation. Simultaneous trapping of different propagating radicals was attempted in several copolymerization systems. However, this was generally unsuccessful, because of the large difference in reactivities of the propagating radical with t-BuNo.