Cobaloxime as a catalytic chain transfer agent

Abstract Cobaloxime, synthesized from CoII acetate and dimethylglyoxime, was used as a chain transfer agent in the free radical polymerization of methyl methacrylate. It proved to be a catalytic chain transfer agent analogous to work recently reported on cobalt porphyrins. Chain transfer constants ranged from 103–104 and were chain length dependent. Catalytic behavior was demonstrated by calculating turnover numbers which showed that each cobaloxime molecule participated in many hundreds of chain transfer reactions.