Piezoelectrically Mediated Reversible Addition–Fragmentation Chain-Transfer Polymerization
Chengqiang Ding, Yuhan Yan, Yuhao Peng, Danming Wu, Hang Shen, Jiandong Zhang, Zhao Wang, Zhengbiao Zhang
Abstract
A well-controlled piezoelectrically mediated reversible addition–fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization (piezo-RAFT) was carried out under ultrasonic agitation with piezoelectric ZnO nanoparticles as the mechanochemical transducer. The resulting polymer had high end-group fidelity, low dispersity, and capacity for chain extension. This piezoelectrically mediated polymerization involves the generation of the alkyl radical through an electron transfer process from the piezoelectric nanoparticle to alkyl bromide, which was also verified by 1H NMR, liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS), electron spin resonance (ESR), and density functional theory (DFT) calculation. This chemistry was further adopted in curing composite resins to circumvent the light penetration limit of ultraviolet (UV) curing. This work opens a new avenue for piezoelectrically mediated chemistry and shows good potential in curing applications.