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High Temperature Semibatch Free Radical Copolymerization of Styrene and Butyl Acrylate
Author(s) -
Wang Wei,
Hutchinson Robin A.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
macromolecular symposia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.257
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1521-3900
pISSN - 1022-1360
DOI - 10.1002/masy.200900005
Subject(s) - branching (polymer chemistry) , copolymer , macromonomer , polymer chemistry , butyl acrylate , styrene , molar mass distribution , radical , polymer , acrylate , materials science , chemistry , organic chemistry , composite material
Summary: High temperature semibatch free radical solution copolymerizations of n ‐butyl acrylate (BA) and styrene (ST) were carried out over a range of copolymer composition. The significant increase in experimental polymer weight‐average molecular weight with time, as well as the shift in the entire polymer molecular weight distribution, is explained by assuming fast β‐scission of BA midchain radicals with an adjacent styrene unit, followed by subsequent addition of the resultant macromonomer to growing radicals. A mechanistic model including backbiting and β‐scission, macronomer incorporation, long‐chain branching, and propagation and termination penultimate effects was constructed in Predici; the model provides a good representation of the experimental data using rate coefficients taken from literature.