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

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.