The advent of Controlled Radical Polymerization (CRP) techniques has allowed the production of (co)polymers with narrow molar mass distributions and with all kinds of copolymer morphologies, even though using common monomers via the radical mechanism. In particular, three variants of CRP have been widely and successfully applied to obtain tailor-made polymers: Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP), Nitroxide Mediated Polymerization (NMP) and Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer (RAFT). All of them are based on decreasing the polymerization termination rates. Polymer characterization is also essential to ensure that the (co)polymer designed has been obtained as desired. An up-to-date overview of CRP and polymer characterization and their roles in the production of tailor-made (co)polymers are presented here.
ATRP; controlled radical polymerization; light scattering; NMP; polymers; RAFT
