University of York Department of Chemistry

A Radical Approach to the Controlled Polymerisation of Methyl Methacrylate


Richard J. Harrison,a Bruce C. Gilbert,a Andrew F. Parsons,a Chris I. Lindsay,b P. Terry McGrail,b Richard Southwardb and Derek Irvine.c

aDepartment of Chemistry, University of York, Heslington, York, UK YO10 5DD 
bICI technology, PO Box 90, Wilton, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, UK TS90 8JE 
cUniqema, PO Box 90, Wilton, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, UK TS90 8JE 
 

 Richard Harrison


Controlled living radical polymerisation of vinyl monomers to afford well-defined polymers with low poly-dispersities has been of considerable interest for many years. A long-term goal of synthetic polymer chemists, has been the development of a radical polymerisation method, which allows the control of macromolecular architecture. Recently, halogen atom transfer radical polymerisation, principally using copper(I) complexes, has been developed as a method of controlled polymerisation of vinyl monomers and the potential of such systems are actively being explored. Other groups have utilized a similar approach using RuCl2(PPh3)3 for the polymerisation of MMA. There are however, problems associated with these methods of polymerisation, primarily due to the difficulty of removing the metal complex from the polymer.

With a view to developing a more practical method of controlled polymerisation, we have investigated the use of dimanganese decacarbonyl [Mn2(CO)10].

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