Redox iniferter

To develop thermal iniferters which act at a lower temperature, Otsu and Tazaki proposed a redox iniferter system [153,154]. For example, reduced nickel (Ni°) reacts with organic halides (R-X) such as benzyl chloride to form a radical, which can initiate polymerization (Eqs. 33-35) ... 

Similarly, it was also found that radical polymerization was induced in the Ni(CO)3(PPh3)/CBrCl3 redox system [155]. This complex is soluble in the polymerization medium, and the polymerization proceeded in a homogeneous system. This redox iniferter system has been intensively developed to the recent successful living radical polymerization using transition-metal complexes in combination with alkyl halides by several independent research groups (see Sect. 6.2). 

---