Experimental Investigation of Emulsion AGET ATRP of MMA in a Stirred Tank Reactor

This study investigates the emulsion AGET ATRP of MMA in a 2-L reactor using the reactants: surfactant (Brij 98), catalyst complex (CuBr2/dNbpy), initiator (EBiB) and reducing agent (ascorbic acid). Preliminary trials demonstrate that the two-step procedure preserves the ATRP living features much better than the single-step procedure. An experimental design and statistical analysis were performed to investigate the main effects and two-factor interaction effects of temperature, surfactant, catalyst complex, initiator and reducing agent on the monomer conversion, average molecular weights and polydispersity index of the polymer. The input-output model predictions agree with experimental data. The results revealed that the temperature was the most influential factor for all three-process responses with 71.34%, 32.78% and 27.76 % contribution. However, the initiator was the least influential factor for both conversion and PDI with 0.035% and 0.13% contribution, whereas the surfactant was the least influential factor for molecular weight with 0.068% contribution