The branched poly(methyl acrylate) was prepared by using 2-(2-bromoisobutyryloxy) ethyl acrylate as inimer agent

methyl acrylate as monomer and Cu0/CuBr2/PMDETA as catalyst system via single electron transfer living radical polymerization (SET-LRP)in DMSO polar solvent at room temperature.In the polymerization process

gas chromatography (GC)

nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-NMR) and triple detection size exclusion chromatography (TD-SEC) were used to analyse and characterize the polymerization and the resulting polymers.The results showed that the polymerization rate was significantly fast at room temperature

when the polymerization time was 130 min

the conversion of monomer methyl acrylate was over 99%.The degree of branching for the branched polymer increased gradually with monomer conversion

and the viscosity of branched polymer was low compared to that of the linear polymer at the same molecular weight.Therefore

the characteristic constant of Mark-Houwink would be minimized to 0.290.In addition

the primary chains with low molecular weight (component 1) in the branched polymers were decreasing during the whole reaction.In the late stages of the reaction

the high branched poly(methyl acrylate) component was mainly obtained.