Vinyl polymers, copolymerizations with

High molecular weight and essentially linear polymers, controlled particle size in the case of emulsions, and even polymers with spatially regulated structures are available. Vinyl acetate copolymerizes with many other vinyl monomers. Acrylate esters vinyl chloride and vi-nylidene chloride dibutyl and other dialkyl maleates and fiimarates crotonic, acrylic, methacrylic and itaconic acids vinyl pyrroli-done and ethylene are commercially important comonomers. A monomer that does not combine with vinyl acetate alone may be combined by use of a third monomer. Grafting can be used with monomers such as styrene that do not copolymerize with vinyl acetate. 

Methyl-4-vinylethynyl-l,3-dioxane, polymers of, 65 Methyl vinyl ketone copolymerization with ethyl acrylate, anionic, 52, 53... 

Poly(vinyhdene chloride) (PVDC) film has exceUent barrier properties, among the best of the common films (see Barrier polymers). It is formulated and processed into a flexible film with cling and tacky properties that make it a useful wrap for leftovers and other household uses. As a component in coatings or laminates it provides barrier properties to other film stmctures. The vinyUdene chloride is copolymerized with vinyl chloride, alkyl acrylates, and acrylonitrile to get the optimum processibUity and end use properties (see Vinylidene chloride monomer and polymers). 

High molecular weight polymers or gums are made from cyclotrisdoxane monomer and base catalyst. In order to achieve a good peroxide-curable gum, vinyl groups are added at 0.1 to 0.6% by copolymerization with methylvinylcyclosiloxanes. Gum polymers have a degree of polymerization (DP) of about 5000 and are useful for manufacture of fluorosiUcone mbber. In order to achieve the gum state, the polymerization must be conducted in a kineticaHy controlled manner because of the rapid depolymerization rate of fluorosiUcone. The expected thermodynamic end point of such a process is the conversion of cyclotrisdoxane to polymer and then rapid reversion of the polymer to cyclotetrasdoxane [429-67 ]. Careful control of the monomer purity, reaction time, reaction temperature, and method for quenching the base catalyst are essential for rehable gum production. 

Vinyl acetate is another monomer used in latex manufacture for architectural coatings. When copolymerized with butyl acrylate, it provides a good balance of cost and performance. The interior flat latex paint market in North America is almost completely dominated by vinyl acetate—acryHc copolymers. Vinyl acetate copolymers are typicaHy more hydrophilic than aH-acryHc polymers and do not have the same ultraviolet light resistance as acryHcs as a result. 

This compound is soluble in most organic solvents and may be easily copolymerized with other vinyl monomers to introduce reactive side groups on the polymer chain (18). Such reactive polymer chains may then be used to modify other polymers including other amino resins. It may be desirable to produce the cross-links first. Thus, A/-methylolacrylamide can react with more acrylamide to produce methylenebisacrylamide, a tetrafunctional vinyl monomer. 

Liquid trichloroethylene has been polymerized by irradiation with Co y-rays or 20-keV x-rays (9). Trichloroethylene has a chain-transfer constant of <1 when copolymerized with vinyl chloride (10) and is used extensively to control the molecular weight of poly(vinyl chloride) polymer. 

Polyethylene can be chlorinated in solution in carbon tetrachloride or in suspension in the piescnce ot a catalyst. Below 55-60% chlorine, it is more stable and more compatible with many polymers, especially polyvinyl chloride, to which it gives increased impact strength. The low pressure process copolymerizes polyethylene with propylene and butylene to increase its resistance to stress cracking. Copolymerization with vinyl acetate at high pressure increases flexibility, resistance to stress cracking, and seal ability of value to the food industry. 

Kondo maintained his interest in this area, and with his collaborators [62] he recently made detailed investigations on the polymerization and preparation of methyl-4-vinylphenyl-sulfonium bis-(methoxycarbonyl) meth-ylide (Scheme 27) as a new kind of stable vinyl monomer containing the sulfonium ylide structure. It was prepared by heating a solution of 4-methylthiostyrene, dimethyl-diazomalonate, and /-butyl catechol in chlorobenzene at 90°C for 10 h in the presence of anhydride cupric sulfate, and Scheme 27 was polymerized by using a, a -azobisi-sobutyronitrile (AIBN) as the initiator and dimethylsulf-oxide as the solvent at 60°C. The structure of the polymer was confirmed by IR and NMR spectra and elemental analysis. In addition, this monomeric ylide was copolymerized with vinyl monomers such as methyl methacrylate (MMA) and styrene. 

Recently it has been shown that anionic functionalization techniques can be applied to the synthesis of macromonomers — macromolecular monomers — i.e. linear polymers fitted at chain end with a polymerizable unsaturation, most commonly styrene or methacrylic ester 69 71). These species in turn provide easy access to graft copolymers upon radical copolymerization with vinylic or acrylic monomers. 

Uses Ethylbenzene is used primarily to make styrene. Styrene is used to make polystyrene, a low-cost and versatile polymer. It is also copolymerized with other vinyl monomers to make rubber (SBR) and moldable plastics (ABS). 

About half of the styrene produced is polymerized to polystyrene, an easily molded, low-cost thermoplastic that is somewhat brittle. Foamed polystyrene can be made by polymerizing it in the presence of low-boiling hydrocarbons, which cause bubbles of gas in the solid polymer after which it migrates out and evaporates. Modification and property enhancement of polystyrene-based plastics can be readily accomplished by copolymerization with other substituted ethylenes (vinyl monomers) for example, copolymerization with butadiene produces a widely used synthetic rubber. 

Homopolymerization of ethyl 4-vinyl-a-cyano-p-phenylcinnamate with AIBN in benzene gave a soluble polymer of inherent viscosity 0.2 djf,/g. There was no evidence for involvement of the tetra-substituted double bond in the polymerization. Copolymerizations with styrene and methyl methacrylate were also successful. 

The synthesis of the first polymer-supported chiral Mn-salen derivatives was reported independently by Sivaram171 and Minutolo.171-173 Different monomeric Jacobsen-type units, containing two polymerizable vinyl groups, were copolymerized with styrene and divinylbenzene to yield the corresponding cross-linked polymers as a monolithic compact block.174-176 The less mobile system (Figure 19) with no spacer between the aromatic ring and the polymer backbone is less enantioselective. 

Radical polymerization is the most useful method for a large-scale preparation of various kinds of vinyl polymers. More than 70 % of vinyl polymers (i. e. more than 50 % of all plastics) are produced by the radical polymerization process industrially, because this method has a large number of advantages arising from the characteristics of intermediate free-radicals for vinyl polymer synthesis beyond ionic and coordination polymerizations, e.g., high polymerization and copolymerization reactivities of many varieties of vinyl monomers, especially of the monomers with polar and unprotected functional groups, a simple procedure for polymerizations, excellent reproducibility of the polymerization reaction due to tolerance to impurities, facile prediction of the polymerization reactions from the accumulated data of the elementary reaction mechanisms and of the monomer structure-reactivity relationships, utilization of water as a reaction medium, and so on. 

Since PTFE was first synthesized more than 50 years ago, fluoropolymers have been produced by radical polymerization and copolymerizaton processes, but without any functional groups, for several reasons. First, the synthesis of functional vinyl compounds suitable for radical polymerization is much more complicated and expensive in comparison with common fluoroolefins. In radical polymerization of one of the simplest possible candidates—perfluorovinyl sulfonic acid (or sulfonyl fluoride—there was not enough reactivity to provide high-molecular-weight polymers or even perfluorinated copolymers with considerable functional comonomer content. Several methods for the synthesis of the other simplest monomer—trifluoroacrylic acid or its esters—were reported,1 but convenient improved synthesis of these compounds as well as radical copolymerization with TFE induced by y-irradiation were not described until 1980.2... 

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