Impact of catalyzed radical termination (CRT) and reductive radical termination (RRT) in metal‐mediated radical polymerization processes

Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP), a metal-catalyzed process, is a most powerful method for macromolecular engineering, producing polymers with targeted and low-dispersity molar masses and with high chain-end fidelity. This is due to the persistent radical effect, which dramatically reduces the spontaneous radical terminations, prolonging the lifetime of radical chains and the concurrent growth of all polymer chains. Two additional reaction modes that involve metals and organic radicals, however, may negatively affect the controlled polymerization. These are the Catalyzed Radical Termination (CRT) and the Reductive Radical Termination (RRT) and were shown to be particularly important for the polymerization of acrylate monomers. The scope and the mechanistic investigations carried out to elucidate how these processes interplay with ATRP and with each other are outlined in this Minireview.