Termination vinyl acetate

Combination and disproportionation are competitive processes and do not occur to the same extent for all polymers. For example, at 60°C termination is virtually 100% by combination for polyacrylonitrile and 100% by disproportionation for poly (vinyl acetate). For polystyrene and poly (methyl methacrylate), both reactions contribute to termination, although each in different proportions. Each of the rate constants for termination individually follows the Arrhenius equation, so the relative amounts of termination by the two modes is given by... 

In these equations I is the initiator and I- is the radical intermediate, M is a vinyl monomer, I—M- is an initial monomer radical, I—M M- is a propagating polymer radical, and and are polymer end groups that result from termination by disproportionation. Common vinyl monomers that can be homo-or copolymeri2ed by radical initiation include ethylene, butadiene, styrene, vinyl chloride, vinyl acetate, acrylic and methacrylic acid esters, acrylonitrile, A/-vinylirnida2ole, A/-vinyl-2-pyrrohdinone, and others (2). 

Termination reaction with vinyl acetate is nearly exclusively by disproportionation (216), although there are reports that recombination increases in... 

II. B polyethylene glycol, ethylene oxide, polystyrene, diisocyanates (urethanes), polyvinylchloride, chloroprene, THF, diglycolide, dilac-tide, <5-valerolactone, substituted e-caprolactones, 4-vinyl anisole, styrene, methyl methacrylate, and vinyl acetate. In addition to these species, many copolymers have been prepared from oligomers of PCL. In particular, a variety of polyester-urethanes have been synthesized from hydroxy-terminated PCL, some of which have achieved commercial status (9). Graft copolymers with acrylic acid, acrylonitrile, and styrene have been prepared using PCL as the backbone polymer (60). 

At the same rate of polymerization, the kinetic chain length for vinyl acetate is over a hundred times that for styrene on account of the greater speed of propagation relative to termination for vinyl acetate. At a convenient rate of 10 moles/liter/sec., for example, each radical chain generated consumes on the average about 5X10 vinyl acetate units under the conditions stated. 

A superficially related dependence of on the medium has been observed by Norrish and Smith working with methyl methacrylate, and by Burnett and Melville with vinyl acetate. Rates in poor solvents are high, and determination of by the rotating sector method reveals what appears to be a decrease in kt in the poor solvents. This apparent decrease in kt accounts for the increased rate of polymerization. Actually, precipitation of the polymer seems to be responsible for the effect. The growing radicals become imbedded in precipitated droplets, presumably of very small size. The termination reaction is suppressed owing to isolation of the chain radical in one droplet from that in another. This gel effect is fairly common in systems yield-... 

The dinitrobenzenes display the characteristics of inhibitors for the more reactive vinyl acetate chain radicals. Two radicals are terminated during the induction period by each molecule of dinitrobenzene, indicating disappearance of inhibitor radicals by a disproportionation reaction. 

We can incorporate short chain branches into polymers by copolymerizing two or more comonomers. When we apply this method to addition copolymers, the branch is derived from a monomer that contains a terminal vinyl group that can be incorporated into the growing chain. The most common family of this type is the linear low density polyethylenes, which incorporate 1-butene, 1-hexene, or 1-octene to yield ethyl, butyl, or hexyl branches, respectively. Other common examples include ethylene-vinyl acetate and ethylene-acrylic acid copolymers. Figure 5.10 shows examples of these branches. 

Depending on the monomer, one needs to adjust the components of the system as well as reaction conditions so that radical concentrations are sufficiently low to effectively suppress normal termination. The less reactive monomers, such as ethylene, vinyl chloride, and vinyl acetate, have not been polymerized by ATRP. Acidic monomers such as acrylic acid are not polymerized because they interfere with the initiator by protonation of the ligands. The car-boxylate salts of acidic monomers are polymerized without difficulty. New ATRP initiators and catalysts together with modification of reaction conditions may broaden the range of polymerizable monomers in the future. 

Case 3 behavior occurs when the particle size is sufficiently large (about 0.1-1 pm) relative to kt such that two or more radicals can coexist in a polymer particle without instantaneous termination. This effect is more pronounced as the particle size and percent conversion increase. At high conversion the particle size increases and k, decreases, leading to an increase in h. The increase in h occurs at lower conversions for the larger-sized particles. Thus for styrene polymerization it increases from 0.5 to only 0.6 at 90% conversion for 0.7-pm particles. On the other hand, for 1.4-pm particles, n increases to about 1 at 80% conversion and more than 2 at 90% conversion [Chatterjee et al., 1979 Gerrens, 1959]. Much higher values of h have been reported in other emulsion polymerizations [Ballard et al., 1986 Mallya and Plamthottam, 1989]. Methyl methacrylate has a more pronounced Trommsdorff effect than styrene and vinyl acetate, and this results in a more exaggerated tendency toward case 3 behavior for methyl methacrylate. 

More recently, Pirrung and co-workers established the facility with which the Rh2(OAc)4 catalyzed reaction of 2-diazocyclohexane-l,3-dione (306) and its substituted derivatives (Scheme 8.76) occurs with dihydrofuran and dihydropyran (351-353), vinyl acetates (354) (306 307), terminal alkynes (355) (306 308), methoxyallene (355), trimethylsilylketene (serving as a synthetic equivalent for ketene) (355), and heteroaromatic compounds (353). This reaction is quite useful... 

Cyclizations of chloral hemiacetal derivatives of cyclic allyl alcohols were regio- and stereo-selective (Table 6, entry 1), but a mixture of regioisomers was obtained from analogous derivatives of acyclic allyl alcohols with a nonterminal double bond.93 Hemiacetal derivatives of allyl alcohols with a terminal vinyl group have been cyclized with mercury(II) acetate to give acetal derivatives of threo 1,2-diols with moderate selectivities (equation 54 and Table 15, entries 1 and 2).147 Moderate to excellent stereoselectivity has been observed in the iodocyclizations of carbonate derivatives of allyl alcohols (entries 3-5).94a The currently available results do not provide a rationale for the variation in observed stereoselectivity. 

Photolysis of this polymer gives radicals on which side chains can be formed, giving graft polymerization 122, 123, 153). Similarly the polymerization of styrene (152) or vinyl acetate (157) in the presence of bromotrichloromethane gives telomers carrying terminal bromine atoms and trichloromethyl groups. By ultraviolet irradiation (3500 A) in the presence of methyl methacrylate the carbon-bromine links are broken and block copolymers are formed. The telomerization of acrylonitrile and acrylic acid with bromoform is based on the same technique the end groups of both polyacrylonitrile and polyacrylic acid were photolyzed in the presence of acrylamide and afforded polyacrylamide blocks linked to polyacrylonitrile or polyacrylic acid blocks (164, 165). 

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