High-Temperature Bulk Copolymerization of Methyl Methacrylate and Acrylonitrile: III. Thermal Polymerization

Abstract

The thermally initiated copolymerization of methyl methacrylate and acrylonitrile has been studied in the bulk phase. Experiments for estimating reactivity ratios were conducted at 120°C and 140°C. Feed composition constraint approaches were used to design the reactivity ratio experiments. The error in variables model (EVM) method was employed to evaluate the reactivity ratios and analyze the error. The results showed that the reactivity ratios did not vary significantly with temperature up to 140°C for both thermally initiated and experiments with initiator. Full conversion range experiments were also conducted at 140°C. The rate of reaction, copolymer composition, M¯ _n , M¯ _w , and glass transition temperatures of samples were measured.

Keywords:

• Copolymerization
• Methyl methacrylate
• Acrylonitrile
• Thermal polymerization
• High-temperature polymerizations

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada and the Canada Research Chair (CRC) program is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

*Khesareh et al., 2005 ^[6] .