Chain initiation thermal

Chain initiation is due to reaction (61), i.e. the thermal decomposition of peroxydisulphate into sulphate radicals, viz. 

In 1993, Linford firstly reported a quite useful method to prepare monolayers of alkyl chains by thermal hydros-ilylation of hydrogen-terminated silicon surfaces [25]. Alkyl chains are covalently bound to Si surface by Si-C bonds. This thermal hydrosilylation could be attributed to a free-radical process with 1-alkene. First, a diacyl peroxide initiator was used to produce free radicals. However, at higher temperature, only hydrogen-terminated silicon and a neat solution of 1-alkene or 1-alkyne can form Si-C linkages [26]. Furthermore, lately it is found that such Si-C covalent links can be observed even in dilute solutions of 1-alkenes [27]. In that case, the density of monolayer packing strongly depends on the reaction temperature. 

Chemical combustion is initiated by the oxidation or thermal decomposition of a fuel molecule, thereby producing reactive radical species by a chain-initiating mechanism. Radical initiation for a particular fuel/oxygen mixture can result from high-energy collisions with other molecules (M) in the system or from hydrogen-atom abstraction by 02or other radicals, as expressed in reactions 6.1-6.3 ... 

Aldehydes are oxidized by dioxygen by the chain mechanism in reactions brought about in different ways initiated, thermal, photochemical, and induced by radiation as well as in the presence of transition metal compounds [4-8]. Oxidation chains are usually very long from 200 to 50,000 units [4], Acyl radicals add dioxygen very rapidly with a rate constant of 10s—109 Lmol V1 [4], Therefore, the initiated chain oxidation of aldehyde includes the following elementary steps at high dioxygen pressures [4-7] ... 

In thermal oxidation, chain initiation takes place by the reaction of the aldehyde with dioxygen. Two reactions of chain generation in autoxidized aldehydes, namely, bimolecular and trimolecular, were proved [25]. 

The complications which arose in the early photochemical work were due to the presence of impurities in the reactants, notably oxygen, NC13 and water which aided chain initiation or termination. In thermal reactions wall effects were in evidence. 

In contrast to reaction (3.71), at high temperatures the thermal decomposition of the methane provides the chain initiation step, namely... 

If the initial thermal condition begins in the chain explosive regime, such as point 2, the induction period rc still exists however, there is no requirement for self-heating, so the mixture immediately explodes. In essence, rt — 0. 

Even though there have been appreciably more studies of CS2, COS is known to exist as an intermediate in CS2 flames. Thus it appears logical to analyze the COS oxidation mechanism first. Both substances show explosion limit curves that indicate that branched-chain mechanisms exist. Most of the reaction studies used flash photolysis hence very little information exists on what the chain-initiating mechanism for thermal conditions would be. 

The emission of a helium nucleus in the final stage regenerates the initial carbon-12. The latter thus plays the role of a catalyst. The overall result is the fusion of four protons into a helium nucleus. At high temperatures, this cycle dominates over the proton-proton chain. Indeed thermal agitation facilitates penetration of the relatively high electrical barrier between proton and carbon nucleus. Whatever hydrogen fusion mechanism is prevalent, the star s mass determines the rate at which it consumes its nuclear fuel, and hence also its lifetime. The higher its mass, the more quickly it bums. 

It is the opinion of the present authors that isomerization of a tertiary alkyl radical to a primary radical as in the formation of II from I is improbable. The formation of IV is similarly unlikely. The cycliza-tion of V by intramolecular alkylation seems quite plausible however, equation 9 does not explain either the formation of V or its subsequent cyclization. The following mechanism has the advantages that, like the generally accepted free radical-initiated mechanisms, it postulates a chain reaction and that the intramolecular alkylation step is directly analogous to that proposed for thermal alkylation, namely addition of an alkyl radical to the double bond of the alkene (Frey and Hepp, 12). The method of formation of the chain initiator, R —, again is not critical since R —, merely starts the first cycle of the chain reaction it may be formed by decomposition of the isobutylene. 

Tetralin hydroperoxide (1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-l-naphthyl hydroperoxide) and 9,10-dihydroanthracyl-9-hydroperoxide were prepared by oxidizing the two hydrocarbons and purified by recrystallization. Commercial cumene hydroperoxide was purified by successive conversions to its sodium salt until it no longer increased the rate of oxidation of cumene at 56°C. All three hydroperoxides were 100% pure by iodometric titration. They all initiated oxidations both thermally (possibly by the bi-molecular reaction, R OOH + RH — R O + H20 + R (33)) and photochemically. The experimental conditions were chosen so that the rate of the thermally initiated reaction was less than 10% of the rate of the photoreaction. The rates of chain initiation were measured with the inhibitors 2,6-di-ter -butyl-4-methylphenol and 2,6-di-fer -butyl-4-meth-oxyphenol. None of the hydroperoxides introduced any kinetically first-order chain termination process into the over-all reaction. 

Gray fit Yang (Ref 1), a mathematical model was proposed to unity the chain and thermal mechanisms of explosion. It was shown that the trajectories in the phase plane of the coupled energy and radical concentration equations of an explosive system will oive the time-dependent behavior of the system when the initial temperature and radical concentration are given. In the 2nd paper of the same investigators (Ref 2), a general equation for explosion limits (P—T relation) is derived from a unified thermal and chain theory and from chis equation, the criteria of explosion limits for either the pure chain or pure thermal theory can be deduced. For detailed discussion see Refs... 

Three conditions must be fulfilled obtain complete conversion of the reactants, H2 and CI2. The first condition is that thermal equilibrium of the system be favorable. This condition is fulfilled at low and intermediate temperatures, where formation of the product HC1 is thermodynamically favored. At very high temperatures, equilibrium favors the reactants, and thereby serves to limit the fractional conversion. The second requirement is that the overall reaction rate be nonnegligible. There are numerous examples of chemical systems where a reaction does not occur within reasonable time scales, even though it is thermodynamically favored. To initiate reaction, the temperature of the H2-CI2 mixture must be above some critical value. The third condition for full conversion is that the chain terminating reaction steps not become dominant. In a chain reaction system, as opposed to a chain-branching system discussed below, the reaction progress is very sensitive to the competition between chain initiation and chain termination. This competition determines the amount of chain carriers (batons) in the system and thereby the rate of conversion of reactants. 

AUTOXIDATION. A word used to describe those spontaneous oxidations, which take place with molecular oxygen or air at moderate temperatures (usually below 150°C) without visible combustion. Autoxidation may proceed through an ionic mechanism, although in most cases the reaction follows a free radical-induced chain mechanism. The reaction is usually autocatalytic and may be initiated thermally, photoehemically, or by addition of either free radical generators or metallic catalysts. Being a chain reaction, the rate of autoxidation may be greatly increased of decreased by traces of foreign material. 

Hydrogen abstraction by RH02 could also participate in the process of initiating a chain of thermal oxidation reactions (pathy). In aqueous systems, cations will further react by solvolysis, and superoxide anion will readily disproportionate to yield H202 (path i). This is in contrast to the fate of superoxide anions in ozonation advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), where they react primarily with ozone to produce hydroxyl radical. This description of the chemical pathways of UV/H202 oxidation of organics illustrates that, when oxygen is present, the major paths directly or indirectly create more... 

The addition of thiols to olefins (thiolene reaction), to form thioethers, is a well-known reaction. The process can occur by either free-radical or ionic mechanisms. The free-radical reaction can be initiated thermally via a peroxide or by UV irradiation with benzophenone. The initiation step involves the formation of a thiyl radical by hydrogen atom abstraction. Both of these species are capable of starting polymer chains (Table 2.30). 

Chain initiation is readily accomplished by deliberately adding initiators, that is, compounds yielding free radicals on thermal decomposition. In practice, initiators should have substantial rates of decomposition in the temperature range 50°-150°C. The rate of chain initiation, Rt, is given by... 

Two principal classes of antioxidant are effective in thermal oxidation. Chainbreaking or primary antioxidants limit the rate of the chain propagation steps (Eqs. 3-2 and 3-3) by trapping carbon- or oxygen-centered free radicals. Hydroperoxide decomposing or secondary antioxidants prevent chain initiation by interfering with ROOH. Photoantioxidants protect plastics exposed to photo-oxidation. 

The participation of Diels-Alder type intermediates in polymerization was considered by Hill et ah (26) in 1939 as a result of the elucidation of the structures of the butadiene homopolymer and the butadiene-methyl methacrylate copolymer resulting from thermal polymerization in emulsion. The considerable amount of alternating 1,4 and 1,2 structures in the homopolymer and the predominantly 1,4 structure of the butadiene in the copolymer which contained more than 50% alternating units of butadiene and methyl methacrylate led to the proposal that the reaction proceeded through a Diels-Alder dimer complex or activated complex. Chain initiation involved a thermal reaction in which the activated com-... 

Recendy, photopolymer systems have aroused increased interest because of their manifold applications in several high technologies [1-3]. Among such systems, those derived from photoinduced polymerization play an important role. The fundamental principles of these systems are based on the production of species X by photoreactions, which then initiates thermal reactions of low-molecular products leading to polymer or network formation see Eq. (1). In general, these thermal reactions are associated with low activation energies (about 60 kJ mol 1 for free radical chain polymerization). Therefore, such processes can also occur suffidentiy fast at room temperature. 

A method of incorporating between 5% to 45% maleic anhydride into polypropylene without chain scission or viscosity increase is described. The method entails an initial thermally induced ene reaction followed by the free radical addition of the anhydride to the polymer backbone. 

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