General procedures in chain-growth polymerization

NAJIB ARAGRAG, DARIO C. CASTIGLIONE, PAUL R. DAVIES, FRED J. DAVIS, and SANGDIL I. PATEL 

Chain-growth polymerization involves the sequential step-wise addition of monomer to a growing chain. Usually, the monomer is unsaturated, almost always a derivative of ethene, and most commonly vinylic, that is, a monosubstituted ethane, 1 particularly where the growing chain is a free radical. For such monomers, the polymerization process is classified by the way in which polymerization is initiated and thus the nature of the propagating chain, namely anionic, cationic, or free radical polymerization by coordination catalyst is generally considered separately as the nature of the growing chain-end may be less clear and coordination may bring about a substantial level of control not possible with other methods.  

Ring-opening polymerizations exhibit many of the features of chain-growth polymerization, but may also show some of the features expected from step-growth polymerizations However, it is probably fair to say that from a practical point of view the techniques involved are rather similar or the same as those used in chain-growth processes and consequently some examples of ring-opening processes are provided here. 

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Aragrag N, Castiglione DC, Davies PR, Davis FJ, Patel SI (2004) General procedures in chain-growth polymerization. In Davis FJ (ed) Polymer chemistry a practical approach. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 43-98. ISBN 9780198503095 Baskaran D, Muller AHE (2007) Anionic vinyl polymerization— 50 years after Michael Szwarc. Prog Polym Sci 32 173... 

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