Tetrafluoromethane polymerization

Termination of polymerization, 173 Tetrafluoromethane, 32 Tetrahydroquinone quadrupole spectrum, 195... 

Tetrafluoroethylene is a colorless, odorless gas which boils at —76.3° C at atmospheric pressure and freezes at —142.5° C (Renfrew and Lewis). Its critical temperature and pressure are 33.3° C and 572 psi. The heat of formation is —151.9 kcal/mole, (Duus Bryant Neugebauer and Margrave), and the heat of polymerization is —41.12 kcal/mole (Bryant). The first reliable report of the preparation of this compound was in 1933 by Ruff and Bretschneider, who decomposed tetrafluoromethane in an electric arc. Other syntheses are based on the dechlorination of sym-dichlorotetrafluoroethane (Locke, Brode, and Henne), the pyrolysis of difluorochloromethane (Downing, Benning, and McHarness Tor-kington and Thompson) or the decarboxylation of sodium perfluoro-proprionate (Hals, Reid, and Smith). 

Ethyl chloride, methylene chloride, difluorodichloromethane, tetrafluoromethane, etc. are generally used as solvents for cationic polymerization. For the quantitative characterization of electrophilic (electron acceptor) and nucleophilic (electron donor) solvents, acceptor (AN) and donor (DN) numbers, respectively, are proposed. 

For more profound textile surface modifications, gases such as tetrafluoromethane (CF4) are useful. Specifically, tetrafluoromethane will form a thin hydrophobic layer over textile fibers after use within a plasma discharge. There are a number of studies which indicate that ablation accompanies the deposition of these thin films on fiber surfaces. In reference [30], Yip et al. suggested that shorter CF4 plasma exposure time will lead to more efficient polymerization effects, whereby longer CF4 plasma exposures lead to better surface ablation and lowered surface tension. 

---