Radical copolymerization between methyl methacrylate and N-cyclohexylmaleimide with thiol as an inifer

✍ Scribed by Xulin Jiang; Deyue Yan; Xinyuan Zhu; Jin Lin; Ping Xia

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 162 KB
• Volume: 74
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-4628(19991107)74:6<1417::aid-app14>3.0.co;2-5

✦ Synopsis

N-dodecanethiol (RSH)

was found efficient to initiate the radical copolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) with N-cyclohexylmaleimide (NCMI) at 40 -60°C. The initial copolymerization rate, R p , increases respectively with increasing [RSH] and the mol fraction of NCMI in the comonomer feed, f NCMI. The molecular weight of the copolymer decreases with increasing [RSH]. The initiator transfer constant of RSH was determined to be C I ϭ 0.21. The apparent activation energy of the overall copolymerization was measured to be 46.9 kJ/mol. The monomer reactivity ratios were determined to be r NCMI ϭ 0.32 and r MMA ϭ 1.35. The glass transition temperature of the copolymer increases obviously with increasing f NCMI , which indicates that adding NCMI may improve the heat resistance of plexiglass.