Comprehensive Modeling Study of Nitroxide-Mediated Controlled/Living Radical Copolymerization of Methyl Methacrylate with a Small Amount of Styrene

This article presents a comprehensive kinetic study of the SG1 nitroxide-mediated copolymerization of methyl methacrylate with a small percentage of styrene using the PREDICI software. The aim of this study was to confirm the results from a previous publication showing that a living polymerization can be achieved for this system. The PREDICI simulations based oil the penultimate unit effect model were also able to give a better insight into the complex mechanism of nitroxide-mediated controlled radical copolymerization. The model showed the copolymerization kinetics and the evolution of the number average molar mass, the fraction of living and dead chains, and the concentration of the four types of alkoxyamines and propagating radicals with monomer conversion. It was applied for different initial percentages of styrene and different initiator concentrations.