Effect of MCM-41 nanoparticles on the kinetics of free radical and RAFT polymerization of styrene

To examine the effect of mobil composition of matter 41 (MCM-41) nanoparticles on the kinetics of free radical and 2-(dodecylthiocarbonothioylthio)-2-methyl-propionic acid (DDMAT)-mediated reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization, the polymerization reaction using various amounts of as-synthesized MCM-41 were performed. To study the reaction kinetics, conversion, molecular weight and polydispersity index (PDI) were obtained during the polymerization. Also, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was used to determine the glass transition temperature (T-g) values of samples. According to the results, in free radical polymerization, conversion was increased by adding nanoparticles but the reverse trend was observed in RAFT polymerization. The same results were obtained for molecular weight values. In free radical polymerization, increasing the MCM-41 content led to higher PDI value, while in RAFT polymerization it did not appreciably affect the PDI value. In RAFT polymerization, no induction time was observed which indicates that DDMAT is an appropriate RAFT agent for styrene polymerization. Also in free radical polymerization, the addition of MCM-41 particles reduced T-g values in comparison to neat PS. On the other hand, there was an increase in T-g value up to 5 wt% of MCM-41 loading and a drastic reduction was observed in 7 wt% MCM-41 loading in the RAFT polymerization. Finally, the T-g values of nanocomposites produced by RAFT method were higher than those in the nanocomposites synthesized using the free radical method.