Kinetic Study of Styrene Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization in the Presence of Nanoporous Silica Aerogel

Controlled radical polymerization (CRP) has attracted much attention over the recent years for providing simple and robust routes to the synthesis of well-defined and low-polydispersitypolymers [1]. Atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) is one of the most powerful methods of living CRP. This technique has also been employed for the preparation of welldefined nanocomposites with different nanosubstrates. Among the various nanofillers, silica aerogels are thenanoporous form of silica which exhibits extremely high specific surface area, low density, and high porosity [2].Because of their nanoporous nature and tenuous solid silica network, aerogels proved themselves as an ideal candidate for variety of applications such as fillers for enhancing physical,mechanical, and thermal properties of polymeric matrix. The main scope of this work is related to kinetic study of styrene ATRP in the presence of silica aerogel as filler.