Issue 15, 2022

Simulation of the RAFT polymerization in 3D: steric restrictions and incompatibility between species

Abstract

In this work we developed a RAFT polymerization model taking into account the main reactions of the experimental RAFT process and implemented that model in dissipative particle dynamics (DPD). With the help of a kinetic model based on the same reaction routine, we investigated the question of how to simulate realistic reactions using such models. We showed that a simultaneous M-fold increase of the initiation probability pi and an M-fold decrease of the termination probability pt does not result in significant changes in the chain length distribution. If the RAFT/initiator ratio is large, a simplified model with no termination and immediate radical formation can be used with good enough accuracy. After that we directly compared the reaction behavior within the kinetic model and DPD. We showed that steric restrictions, which were not present in the kinetic model, can introduce noticeable changes in the system behavior. Finally, we studied the influence of the incompatibility on the RAFT polymerization process on an example of classical implementation of polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA). We showed that in systems with incompatible species the number of activation–deactivation cycles does not always reflect the dispersity of the resulting chain ensemble. Moreover, we demonstrated that specifically the incompatibility between the RAFT end group and other species can have a large effect on the polymerization results.

Graphical abstract: Simulation of the RAFT polymerization in 3D: steric restrictions and incompatibility between species

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
07 Dec 2021
Accepted
20 Mar 2022
First published
21 Mar 2022

Polym. Chem., 2022,13, 2143-2154

Simulation of the RAFT polymerization in 3D: steric restrictions and incompatibility between species

A. A. Gavrilov and A. V. Chertovich, Polym. Chem., 2022, 13, 2143 DOI: 10.1039/D1PY01624E

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