Vinyl chloride radical addition

Branching occurs especially when free radical initiators are used due to chain transfer reactions (see following section, Free Radical Polymerizations ). For a substituted olefin (such as vinyl chloride), the addition primarily produces the most stable intermediate (I). Intermediate (II) does not form to any appreciable extent ... 

In some cases reactive alkenes can be polymerized with Kolbe radicals as initiators, e.g. styrene, acrylonitrile, vinyl acetate, methyl acrylate, acrylic acid, acrylamide or vinyl chloride. - The addition of Kolbe radicals to pyridine, benzotrifluoride or benzonitrile affords only low yields. 

Addition polymerization, (a) Write the structural formula for the addition product of the vinyl chloride radical to a molecule of vinyl chloride ... 

For most vinyl polymers, head-to-tail addition is the dominant mode of addition. Variations from this generalization become more common for polymerizations which are carried out at higher temperatures. Head-to-head addition is also somewhat more abundant in the case of halogenated monomers such as vinyl chloride. The preponderance of head-to-tail additions is understood to arise from a combination of resonance and steric effects. In many cases the ionic or free-radical reaction center occurs at the substituted carbon due to the possibility of resonance stabilization or electron delocalization through the substituent group. Head-to-tail attachment is also sterically favored, since the substituent groups on successive repeat units are separated by a methylene... 

An example of a commercial semibatch polymerization process is the early Union Carbide process for Dynel, one of the first flame-retardant modacryhc fibers (23,24). Dynel, a staple fiber that was wet spun from acetone, was introduced in 1951. The polymer is made up of 40% acrylonitrile and 60% vinyl chloride. The reactivity ratios for this monomer pair are 3.7 and 0.074 for acrylonitrile and vinyl chloride in solution at 60°C. Thus acrylonitrile is much more reactive than vinyl chloride in this copolymerization. In addition, vinyl chloride is a strong chain-transfer agent. To make the Dynel composition of 60% vinyl chloride, the monomer composition must be maintained at 82% vinyl chloride. Since acrylonitrile is consumed much more rapidly than vinyl chloride, if no control is exercised over the monomer composition, the acrylonitrile content of the monomer decreases to approximately 1% after only 25% conversion. The low acrylonitrile content of the monomer required for this process introduces yet another problem. That is, with an acrylonitrile weight fraction of only 0.18 in the unreacted monomer mixture, the low concentration of acrylonitrile becomes a rate-limiting reaction step. Therefore, the overall rate of chain growth is low and under normal conditions, with chain transfer and radical recombination, the molecular weight of the polymer is very low. 

Without other alternatives, the carboxyalkyl radicals couple to form dibasic acids HOOC(CH)2 COOH. In addition, the carboxyalkyl radical can be used for other desired radical reactions, eg, hydrogen abstraction, vinyl monomer polymerization, addition of carbon monoxide, etc. The reactions of this radical with chloride and cyanide ions are used to produce amino acids and lactams employed in the manufacture of polyamides, eg, nylon. 

Addition. Chlorine adds to vinyl chloride to form 1,1,2-trichloroethane [79-00-5] (44—46). Chlorination can proceed by either an ionic or a radical path. In the Hquid phase and in the dark, 1,1,2-trichloroethane forms by an ionic path when a transition-metal catalyst such as ferric chloride [7705-08-0], FeCl, is used. The same product forms in radical reactions up to 250°C. Photochernically initiated chlorination also produces... 

Modifications of epichlorohydrin elastomers by radical-induced graft polymeri2ation have been reported. Incorporated monomers include styrene and acrylonitrile, styrene, maleic anhydride, vinyl acetate, methyl methacrylate, and vinyHdene chloride (81), acryHc acid (82), and vinyl chloride (81,83,84). When the vinyl chloride-modified epichlorohydrin polymers were used as additives to PVC, impact strength was improved (83,84). 

For the remaining three systems, styrene-vinyl acetate, vinyl acetate-vinyl chloride, and methyl acrylate-vinyl chloride, one reactivity ratio is greater than unity and the other is less than unity. They are therefore nonazeotropic. Furthermore, since both ri and 1/7 2 are either greater than or less than unity, both radicals prefer the same monomer. In other words, the same monomer—styrene, vinyl chloride, and methyl acrylate in the three systems, respectively—is more reactive than the other with respect to either radical. This preference is extreme in the styrene-vinyl acetate system where styrene is about fifty times as reactive as vinyl acetate toward the styrene radical the vinyl acetate radical prefers to add the styrene monomer by a factor of about one hundred as compared with addition of vinyl acetate. Hence polymerization of a mixture of similar amounts of styrene and vinyl acetate yields an initial product which is almost pure polystyrene. Only after most of the styrene has polymerized is a copolymer formed... 

Radiation chemistry in polymer research, 168-169 Reactive macroalkyl radicals, formation, 409 Reactive modifiers addition of reactive antioxidants on rubbers, 417 adhesion, 420,422 demanding applications, 414,416 improving additive performance during melt processing, 412 polymer bound antioxidant, 418-419/ Reduced poly(vinyl chloride),... 

The vinyl chloride monomer polymerizes via addition polymerization to form polyvinyl chloride. The final polymer has the chemical composition shown in Fig. 22.1. The polymer exhibits limited crystallinity, though this property is not often considered as important in defining its performance. It tends to be atactic or regionally syndiotactic, surrounded by extended atactic runs. When exposed to temperatures above 100 °C, polyvinyl chloride decomposes, creating free radicals that further attack the polymer chain, as we shall discuss in more detail later. For this reason, the degradation of polyvinyl chloride is autocatalytic... 

Polymerization of vinyl chloride occurs through a radical chain addition mechanism, which can be achieved through bulk, suspension, or emulsion polymerization processes. Radical initiators used in vinyl chloride polymerization fall into two classes water-soluble or monomer-soluble. The water-soluble initiators, such as hydrogen peroxide and alkali metal persulfates, are used in emulsion polymerization processes where polymerization begins in the aqueous phase. Monomer-soluble initiators include peroxides, such as dilauryl and benzoyl peroxide, and azo species, such as 1,1 -azobisisobutyrate, which are shown in Fig. 22.2. These initiators are used in emulsion and bulk polymerization processes. 

Most addition polymers are formed from polymerizations exhibiting chain-growth kinetics. This includes the typical polymerizations, via free radical or some ionic mode, of the vast majority of vinyl monomers such as vinyl chloride, ethylene, styrene, propylene, methyl methacrylate, and vinyl acetate. By comparison, most condensation polymers are formed from systems exhibiting stepwise kinetics. Industrially this includes the formation of polyesters and polyamides (nylons). Thus, there exists a large overlap between the terms stepwise kinetics and condensation polymers, and chainwise kinetics and addition (or vinyl) polymers. A comparison of the two types of systems is given in Table 4.1. 

The very high value of Cm for vinyl chloride is attributed to a reaction sequence involving the propagating center XVIII formed by head-to-head addition [Hjertberg and Sorvik, 1983 Llauro-Darricades et al., 1989 Starnes, 1985 Starnes et al., 1983 Tornell, 1988]. Intramolecular migration of a chlorine atom (Eq. 3-114) yields the secondary radical XIX that subsequently transfers the chlorine atom to monomer (Eq. 3-115) to yield poly(vinyl chloride)... 

The rates of radical-monomer reactions are also dependent on considerations of steric hindrance. This is easily observed by considering the reactivities of di, tri-, and tetrasubstituted ethylenes in copolymerization. Table 6-5 shows the kn values for the reactions of various chloroethylenes with vinyl acetate, styrene, and acrylonitrile radicals. The effect of a second substituent on monomer reactivity is approximately additive when both substituents are in the 1- or a-position. However, a second substituent when in the 2- or (3-position of the monomer results in a decrease in reactivity due to steric hindrance between it and the radical to which it is adding. Thus 2-10-fold increases and 2-20-fold decreases in the reactivities of vinylidene chloride and 1,2-dichloroethylene, respectively, are observed compared to vinyl chloride. 

However, if increasing amounts of free radical acceptors are added to the system, the block and graft polymerization gradually decreases, as saturation of free macroradicals proceeds faster than the addition of monomers. In Table 2, the influence of benzoquinone on the graft polymerization of vinyl chloride on poly(methyl methacrylate) is shown (20). 

In general, there are two distinctively different classes of polymerization (a) addition or chain growth polymerization and (b) condensation or step growth polymerization. In the former, the polymers are synthesized by the addition of one unsaturated unit to another, resulting in the loss of multiple bonds. Some examples of addition polymers are (a) poly(ethylene), (b) poly(vinyl chloride), (c) poly(methyl methacrylate), and (d) poly(butadiene). The polymerization is initiated by a free radical, which is generated from one of several easily decomposed compounds. Examples of free radical initiators include (a) benzoyl peroxide, (b) di-tert-butyl peroxide, and (c) azobiisobutyronitrile. 

The chemistry of all fullerenes is dominated by their ability to react as poorly conjugated and electron-deficient 2ir alkenes they show very few properties typical of dienes or arenes (5). In addition, because of the high cage stability, they never undergo substitutions. C60 shows behavior similar to that of a monosubstituted alkene such as vinyl chloride or acrylate. All fullerenes readily add to electron-rich species such as nucleophiles, bases, radicals, or reducing agents. They are, for example, perfect dienophiles for Dieles-Alder reactions. The types of reactions undergone by fullerenes are illustrated in Scheme 1. 

Addition. Vinyl chloride undergoes a wide variety of addition reactions. Chlorine adds to vinyl chloride to form 1,1.2-tnchloroethane by either an ionic or a radical path. Hydrogen halides add to vinyl chloride, usually to yield the 1.1-adduct. Many other vinyl chlonde adducts can be formed under acid-catalyzed Fnedel-Crafts conditions. Vinyl chloride can be hydrogenated to ethyl chloride and ethane over a platinum on alumina catalyst. 

Vaughan et al. (103) studied the photobromination of ethylene, propylene, 1-butene, isobutene, and vinyl chloride in the gas phase and found in every case where a distinction could be made that the product was almost entirely the so-called abnormal addition product in terms of the Markownikoff s rule. However, the more recent work of Skell et al. (95) shows that 2-bromo-w-propyl radical may rearrange very rapidly to 1-bromo-isopropyl radical. In view of this the observed exclusive terminal addition of Br atoms in the case of propylene could be in part due to rapid rearrangement. 

A large number of accurate rate constants are known for addition of simple alkyl radicals to alkenes.33-33 Table 2 summarizes some substituent effects in the addition of the cyclohexyl radical to a series of monosubstituted alkenes.36 The resonance stabilization of the adduct radical is relatively unimportant (because of the early transition state) and the rate constants for additions roughly parallel the LUMO energy of the alkene. Styrene is selected as a convenient reference because it is experimentally difficult to conduct additions of nucleophilic radicals to alkenes that are much poorer acceptors than styrene. Thus, high yield additions of alkyl radicals to acceptors, such as vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate, are difficult to accomplish and it is not possible to add alkyl radicals to simple alkyl-substituted alkenes. Alkynes are slightly poorer acceptors than similarly activated alkenes but are still useful.37... 

The vinyl chloride and vinyl bromide copolymer samples were prepared as polymer analogs of PVC. Cleavage of the carbon-halogen bond at LNT should result in the same radical for these polymers. Since secondary C-Cl and C-Br bond dissociation energies are 73 and 59 Kcal/mole respectively, a copolymer of vinyl chloride and vinyl bromide could be regarded as a PVC chain with weak points. The feed ratio of VC/VB was 10/1 by volume. Since the reactivity ratios are (in solution, at 40°C), r = 0.825 for VC and r2 = 1.050 for VB (22), the copolymer composition should be 15 units of vinyl chloride for one unit of vinyl bromide on the average. In addition, the values for r and... 

The reactions (21) and (22) are particularly important. The first one leads to the main products. The second one emphasizes the formation of acetylene, further involved in the formation of other impurities, such as benzene and vinyl-acetylene. The third and the fourth reactions explain the formation of light unsaturated hydrocarbons. In the presence of free radicals they may produce a variety of higher molecular species, some unsaturated as butadiene (reaction (25)) and chloroprene (reaction (26)). The chloroprene, formed by the addition of acetylene to vinyl-chloride, is highly undesired. 

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