Cu(0)-mediated polymerization of hydrophobic acrylates using high-throughput experimentation

In this paper the optimization of the Cu(0)-mediated polymerization of n-butyl acrylate and 2-methoxyethyl acrylate is reported using an automated parallel synthesizer. Using this robot, up to 16 kinetic reactions could be performed in parallel, resulting in a fast screening of different reaction conditions. Several parameters were optimized to determine the optimal reaction conditions with regard to control over the polymerization and reaction rate. These optimal reaction conditions were then used for the one-pot two-step synthesis of diblock copolymers by sequential monomer addition.