Chain scission reaction rate

Although primary and secondary alkyl hydroperoxides are attacked by free radicals, as in equations 8 and 9, such reactions are not chain scission reactions since the alkylperoxy radicals terminate by disproportionation without forming the new radicals needed to continue the chain (53). Overall decomposition rates are faster than the tme first-order rates if radical-induced decompositions are not suppressed. 

The effect of oxidative irradiation on mechanical properties on the foams of E-plastomers has been investigated. In this study, stress relaxation and dynamic rheological experiments are used to probe the effects of oxidative irradiation on the stmcture and final properties of these polymeric foams. Experiments conducted on irradiated E-plastomer (octene comonomer) foams of two different densities reveal significantly different behavior. Gamma irradiation of the lighter foam causes stmctural degradation due to chain scission reactions. This is manifested in faster stress-relaxation rates and lower values of elastic modulus and gel fraction in the irradiated samples. The incorporation of O2 into the polymer backbone, verified by IR analysis, conftrms the hypothesis of... 

An alternative pathway for entanglement loss is chain scission (Fig. 3.2, process B), in which a covalent bond along the polymer main chain is broken and a stress-bearing, otherwise elastic, chain is lost. Chain scission reactions, for example, homolytic carbon-carbon cleavage, have obviously high activation energies. The stress-free rates of these reactions are therefore typically extremely low. 

The linear variation of ln[H(t)/H(0)] suggests that the rate of the global chain scission reaction follows first-order kinetics that can be characterized by the following relation ... 

Finally, the effect of ordering processes must be considered in the interpretation of results from accelerated aging tests. The activation energies for the chain-scission reaction and for molecular ordering are likely to be quite different. Furthermore, enhancement of the ordering process through the reduction in DP caused by chain scission is likely to manifest itself as an autocatalytic effect wherein the rate of decay of... 

The observed products from the thermal degradation of a wide range of thermoplastics can be accounted for by the differences in the rate constants ki, fed, fef, fes, and fet. For example, if fed > fef, the polymer tends to depolymerise to the monomer in almost quantitative yield, whereas if fed fef the products will include large fragments arising from the chain scission reaction. 

The uptake of O2 by films of this polymer was shown to be diffusion controlled. This manifested itself in the small energy of activation of the oxidation process and in the fact that the overall chain scission reaction (i.e. the rate constant) was a function of the... 

By using the kinetic equations developed in Sect. 5.2, the degradation yield as a function of strain rate and temperature can be calculated. The results, with different values of the temperature and preexponential factor, are reported in Fig. 51 where it can be seen that increasing the reaction temperature from 280 K to 413 K merely shifts the critical strain rate for chain scission by <6%. 

Example 4. Depolymerization under Pressure.62 PET resin was depolymerized at pressures which varied from 101 to 620 kPa and temperatures of 190—240° C in a stirred laboratory reactor having a bomb cylinder of2000 mL (Parr Instrument) for reaction times of 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 h and at various ratios of EG to PET. The rate of depolymerization was found to be directly proportional to the pressure, temperature, and EG—PET ratio. The depolymerization rate was proportional to the square of the EG concentration at constant temperature, which indicates that EG acts as both a catalyst and reactant in the chain scission process. 

The hydrolytic depolymerisation of PETP in stirred potassium hydroxide solution was investigated. It was found that the depolymerisation reaction rate in a KOH solution was much more rapid than that in a neutral water solution. The correlation between the yield of product and the conversion of PETP showed that the main alkaline hydrolysis of PETP linkages was through a mechanism of chain-end scission. The result of kinetic analysis showed that the reaction rate was first order with respect to the concentration of KOH and to the concentration of PETP solids, respectively. This indicated that the ester linkages in PETP were hydrolysed sequentially. The activation energy for the depolymerisation of solid PETP in a KOH solution was 69 kJ/mol and the Arrhenius constant was 419 L/min/sq cm. 21 refs. 

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