The polymerization of metyl methacrylate (MMA) was studied in detail by use of CuCl/L as a catalyst and cho-lesteryl chloroformate (CC) as an initiator. It was found that the atom transfer radical polymerization of MMA could proceed when L equals to a multidentate aliphatic amine ligand, N,N,N',N'',N″-penta(methyl acry-late)diethylenetriamine (MA5-DETA), and no polymerization was occurred while L=2,2'-bipyridine and 1,10- phenanthroline. The linear proportionality of the molecular weights to the conversions and straight lines observed in ln[M]0/[M] versus time plots indicated that the present polymerization system had the typical controlled polymeri-zation characteristics.
