Uniqsis reports how researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Institute of Membrane Research (Geesthacht, Germany) are using a FlowLab Plus flow chemistry system with glass static mixer reactor blocks to synthesise well defined polymers.
The FlowLab Plus™ is a versatile modular flow chemistry system that is configured to run both manual and automated flow chemistry reactions. The system may be configured with any combination of up to 4 individual reactor modules. A wide variety of configurations are possible.
Synthesizing well defined polymers, with a narrow Molecular Weight distribution, has traditionally been achieved by using anionic polymerization methodologies. However, precise control of Molecular Weight achieved in this way is accompanied by very high sensitivity to impurities, temperature changes and fast polymerization rates, which leads to high demands on the process control along with challenging laboratory work. More recently radical polymerization methods such as the Reversible Addition-Fragmentation chain Transfer (RAFT) polymerization technique have been the focus of polymer research as alternative methods to synthesize well-defined polymers from a variety of monomers.
In a new paper, published by the Helmholtz Institute, a model-assisted approach to develop and optimize a flow chemistry reaction system for the RAFT polymerization of MMA is presented providing an insight into the polymerization process enabling development of process optimization strategies.
