Abstract
Vinyl acetate and methyl acrylate living radical polymerization were successfully mediated by cobalt(ii) Salen* complexes. Living characters of the polymerization are demonstrated by the linear increase in molecular weight with conversion, low polydispersity (1.14-1.27), and the formation of block copolymers. The equilibrium between cobalt(ii) and organo-cobalt(iii) species in methyl acrylate polymerization was followed by UV-vis spectroscopy and the equilibrium constant was determined to be 2.4 × 10 7 M -1 . © 2013 The Royal Society of Chemistry.