Combined SANS, SEC, NMR, and UV-Vis studies of simultaneous living anionic copolymerization process; Simultaneous elucidation of propagating living chains at three different length scales

Zhao, Y.; Tanaka, Hirokazu*; Miyamoto, Nobuyoshi*; Koizumi, Satoshi; Hashimoto, Takeji

The living anionic copolymerization of a mixture of isoprene (I) and styrene (S) monomers, in the dilute solution with deuterated benzene as a non-polar solvent and sec-butyllithium as an initiator, was investigated by a simultaneous measurement of time-resolved small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), size exclusion chromatography (SEC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. The combined time-resolved study on the same single batch reaction solution enabled us to investigate the structural change of the propagating living chains in three different length scales on a rigorously common time scale: the type of living chain ends, primary structure of single living chains, and the association of living chains. Although the living anionic copolymerization of S and I has been studied extensively, there is no study so far that uses such a combination of real-time methods as this study on the same single batch reaction solution.