Photoinduced controlled radical polymerization of methyl acrylate and vinyl acetate by xanthate

A novel fluoro-xanthate, 2-((4-fluorophenoxycarbonothioyl) thio) ethyl propanoate, was developed and successfully used as a mediator in the photoinduced controlled radical polymerization of more-activated monomers (methyl acrylate (MA), butyl acrylate, and N-isopropylacrylamide) and a less-activated monomer (vinyl acetate (VAc)). The controlled characteristics of the polymerization were demonstrated by the linearly increasing molar mass with conversion, producing polymers with narrow molar mass distributions (1.14-1.37) for MA and VAc. Furthermore, the block copolymer of PMA-b-PVAc was successfully synthesized through chain-extension using PMA as the macro-RAFT agent and VAc as the second monomer.