Copolymerizing Acrylonitrile and Methyl Acrylate by RAFT for Melt Processing Applications: A Synthetic Investigation of the Effects of Chain Transfer Agent, Initiator, Temperature, and Solvent

Abstract

Statistical copolymers of acrylonitrile (AN) and methyl acrylate (MA) were successfully prepared and characterized using reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) copolymerization. A typical copolymer was charged with 15 wt. % MA content. This thesis describes a systematic variation of the RAFT copolymerization variables to optimize this system. In particular, the effects of chain transfer agent, initiator, temperature, and solvent on the copolymer properties were studied.