Synergistic Effect of 1-Butyl-3-methylimidazolium Hexafluorophosphate and DMSO in the SARA ATRP at Room Temperature Affording Very Fast Reactions and Polymers with Very Low Dispersity.

An unusual synergistic effect between 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate (BMIM-PF) and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) mixtures is reported for the supplemental activator and reducing agent atom transfer radical polymerization (SARA ATRP) of methyl acrylate (MA) using a catalytic system composed by sodium dithionate (NaSO) and CuBr/MeTREN (MeTREN: tris[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]amine) at room temperature. To the best of our knowledge, the use of ionic liquids (IL) has never been reported for the SARA ATRP. The kinetic data obtained for a broad range of target molecular weights revealed very fast polymerization rates, low dispersity values ( < 1.05) and well-defined chain-end functionalities.