Abstract
The curing reaction of polyester fumarate with styrene was investigated with a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) operated isothermally. The change in rate of cure was followed over the whole range of conversion. The rate of cure is accelerated by the gel effect to about ten to fifty times the rate of model copolymerization of diethyl fumarate with styrene. This autoacceleration is much enhanced for systems with higher crosslinking densities and at lower temperatures. The results confirm that both termination and propagation steps of the curing reaction are controlled by diffusion of polymeric segments and monomer molecules over almost the whole range of conversion. The final extent of conversion is short of completion for isothermal cure and even for postcure of polyester fumarate with styrene because of crosslink formation. The final conversion of isothermal cure decreases with increasing crosslinking density and shows a maximum with increasing reaction temperature. This temperature dependency of the final conversion is caused by the difference in the activation energies for two propagation rate constants k~pf~ and k~ps~, which were evaluated to be 7โ10 and 5โ8 kcal/mole, respectively, for the intermediate stage of the curing reaction.