Progress in Living Radical Polymerization of Unconjugated Monomers

Living radical polymerization has developed over the past decade into an effective means for macromolecular design. The representative processes are nitroxide-mediated polymerization (NMP), atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization or macromolecular design via interchange of xanthate (MADIX). These techniques have been successfully applied to conjugated monomers, but less successfully to unconjugated ones. This review summarizes living radical polymerization techniques that are successfully applied to unconjugated monomers, where mainly RAFT/MADIX systems, some ATRP systems, iodine degenerative transfer system and the newly developed organotellurium-mediated radical polymerization (TERP), organostibine-mediated radical polymerization (SBRP) are available, among which,the uniqueness of TERP and SBRP is worth notice.