Patent ID: 8575285

Claim:
A polymerization method comprising a step of conducting a living radical polymerization, wherein the living radical polymerization step is conducted in the presence of a catalyst and an organic halide having a carbon-halogen bond, wherein the catalyst reversibly produces a radical from the organic halide having a carbon-halogen bond, and wherein the catalyst comprises: at least one central element consisting of carbon and a halogen atom binding to the central element, wherein the central element is further bound to two or three substituents which are electron-withdrawing substituents or substituents forming a resonance structure together with the central element, wherein when the number of substituents is two, the two substituents may be linked to each other such that the central element and the two substituents form a ring structure, when the number of substituents is three, two of the three substituents may be linked to each other such that the two linked substituents and the central element form a ring structure, or the three substituents may be linked to one another to form a ring structure, and the substituent binding to the central element stabilizes a carbon radical that is generated by elimination of a halogen atom from the central element, and wherein the method does not use a catalyst for living radical polymerization containing Ge, Sn, or Sb as a central element.