Adapting Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization to Industrial Scale Production: TheUltimate ATRPSMTechnology

Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) is among the most powerful controlled/living radical polymerization techniques and it is anticipated that many new products containing polymers made by this technique will be introduced in the US within the next several years. The major factors which constrain the commercial application of ATRP are high copper catalyst concentration and the special handling procedures which are required to avoid catalyst oxidation. Recently developed catalytic systems for ATRP alleviate these problems but were successfully applied only on the laboratory scale. The new Ultimate ATRPSM technology is presented that has a much greater potential to be used on industrial scale. There are several advantages of the proposed method compared to the currently used ICAR (initiators for continuous activator regeneration) ATRP.