Photoredox-controlled/living radical polymerization (photo-CRP) has recently emerged as a powerful strategy to control the chain-growing process for polymer synthesis and advanced material fabrication. Benefiting from the nature of photoredox catalysis, polymerizations featuring with advantages such as metal free, oxygen tolerance, mechanism interchange and others have been established in recent years. However, as a consequence of the Beer-Lambert law, light intensity decreases exponentially with increasing path length under conventional batch conditions. As a result, flow chemistry, which has proven advantages for photoreactions, has been utilized for photopolymerization. Although this new technique has provided photo-CRPs with enhanced reaction rates, on-demand/upgraded production scales and convenient regulations on topologies/morphologies, viscosity remains a major impediment for applying flow to living polymerizations. Herein, we report our approaches to overcome the viscosity challenges that plague continuous-flow CRP. Our new design featuring with custom made microfluidic parts and computer-aided platforms, which not only allows photo-CRP to be highly efficient and scalable, but also compatible with viscous mixtures of high solid content. Given the remarkably increasing interests of photopolymerization and flow synthesis, our method offers an alternative pathway for on-demand polymer synthesis at different scales and varieties.

Continuous-flow photo-controlled radical polymerization with concentrated monomer/polymer solutions

2019 Fall National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.