Scale-up of microwave-assisted polymerizations in continuous-flow mode : cationic ring-opening polymerization of 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline

Controlled radical polymerization (CRP) techniques are providing tremendous advantages for the synthesis of well-defined polymers with desired architectures. Nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization is one of the three most important CRP techniques and is used in industrial applications. In this study, two important parameters of the nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization technique were examined. Several polymerization temperatures (from 90 to 130 °C) and free nitroxide concentrations (from 0 to 10%) were investigated for the nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization of styrene and tert-butyl acrylate with MAMA as SG-1 based initiator. The optimization of those parameters was performed in a parallel manner on an automated synthesis platform.