Water as a chain-transferring agent in Vinyl polymerization

Abstract

In a previous communication the chain-transfer constant (C_s) of a solvent in a mixed solvent system was determined. This opens up the possibility of determining the chain-transfer constant of solvents which are immiscible with the monomer. By a suitable choice of a common solvent the heterogeneous mixture of the monomer and the immiscible solvent can be kept in a homogeneous medium, and the C_s value of the latter can be determined. An attempt is reported here to determine the chain-transferring capacity of water with the growing radical of poly-(methyl methacrylate) on the above principle.