Polystyrene, Styrene-Copolymers, PolyfMethyl Methacrylate

Poly(styrene)-poly(acrylate) colloidal suspensions, 7 275 Polystyrene/polyfmethyl methacrylate) commercial block copolymers, 7 648t Polystyrenes. See also Polystyrene (PS) commercial, 23 364 general-purpose, 23 364 specialty, 23 364-366 stabilized, 23 366 tactic, 23 365... 

The styrene/methyl methacrylate pair contains monomers with different relative reactivity levels in Table 9-1. Polystyryl anion will initiate the polymerization of methyl methacrylate, but the anion of the latter monomer is not sufficiently nucleophilic to cross-initiate the polymerization of styrene. Thus the anionic polymerization of a mixture of the two monomers yields polyfmethyl methacrylate) while addition of methyl methacrylate to living polystyrene produces a block copolymer of the two monomers. 

Fig. 54. Monomer unit of a molecule of methyl methacrylate-styrene graft copolymer. Axis 1 parallel to the trans chain of polyfmethyl methacrylate) (i.e. the main chain of the graft copolymer the plane of which is the 1,3 plane). Axis 2 parallel to the direction of the trans chain of grafted polystyrene...

Figure 6.16 Schematic representation of pattern transfer by taking advantage of the self-assembly of two different diblock copolymers poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(st5Tene-r-4-hydroxystyrene) and poly(styrene-r-4-vinylpyridine)-b-poly(methyl methacrylate) followed by irradiation and plasma treatment. The images below correspond to square arrays of pores created onto silicon water resulting from the treatments. PS, polystyrene PMMA, polyfmethyl methacrylate) UV, ultraviolet RIE (Reactive Ion Etching).

The important features of rigidity and transparency make the material competitive with polystyrene, cellulose acetate and poly(methyl methacrylate) for a number of applications. In general the copolymer is cheaper than poly(methyl methacrylate) and cellulose acetate, tougher than polyfmethyl methacrylate) and polystyrene and superior in chemical and most physical properties to polystyrene and cellulose acetate. It does not have such a high transparency or such food weathering properties as poly(methyl methacrylate). As a result of these considerations the styrene-acrylonitrile copolymers have found applications for dials, knobs and covers for domestic appliances, electrical equipment and car equipment, for picnicware and housewares, and a number of other industrial and domestic applications with requirements somewhat more stringent than can be met by polystyrene. 

Until 2003, Chen s [28], Qu s [29-31], and Hu s [32] groups independently reported nanocomposites with polymeric matrices for the first time the. In Hsueh and Chen s work, exfoUated polyimide/LDH was prepared by in situ polymerization of a mixture of aminobenzoate-modified Mg-Al LDH and polyamic acid (polyimide precursor) in N,N-dimethylactamide [28]. In other work, Chen and Qu successfully synthesized exfoliated polyethylene-g-maleic anhydride (PE-g-MA)/LDH nanocomposites by refluxing in a nonpolar xylene solution of PE-g-MA [29,30]. Then, Li et al. prepared polyfmethyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/MgAl LDH by exfoliation/adsorption with acetone as cosolvent [32]. Since then, polymer/LDH nanocomposites have attracted extensive interest. The wide variety of polymers used for nanocomposite preparation include polyethylene (PE) [29, 30, 33 9], polystyrene (PS) [48, 50-58], poly(propylene carbonate) [59], poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) [60-62], poly(vinyl chloride) [63], syndiotactic polystyrene [64], polyurethane [65], poly[(3-hydroxybutyrate)-co-(3-hydroxyvalerate)] [66], polypropylene (PP) [48, 67-70], nylon 6 [9,71,72], ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer (EVA) [73-77], poly(L-lactide) [78], poly(ethylene terephthalate) [79, 80], poly(caprolactone) [81], poly(p-dioxanone) [82], poly(vinyl alcohol) [83], PMMA [32,47, 48, 57, 84-93], poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) [94], poly(styrene-co-methyl methacrylate) [95], polyimide [28], and epoxy [96-98]. These nanocomposites often exhibit enhanced mechanical, thermal, optical, and electrical properties and flame retardancy. Among them, the thermal properties and flame retardancy are the most interesting and will be discussed in the following sections. 

We have studied the degradation by high-energy radiation of a number of families of polymers by using a variety of techniques, including ESR spectroscopy [10,11]. In this paper we show the similarities and differences in the role of free radicals in the radiolysis of polyfmethyl methacrylate), polystyrene, and random copolymers of methyl methacrylate and styrene. 

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