Abstract
Synthesis of a series of novel terpolymers, consisting of two electron‐donating monomers, viz. N‐vinyl pyrrolidone (N‐VP) (heterocyclic polar monomer) and styrene (Sty) (non‐polar monomer), with one electron‐accepting polar monomer, i.e. acrylonitrile (AN), using α,α'‐azobisisobutyronitrile as radical initiator and benzene as diluent at 60°C, has been extensively surveyed. Besides the synthesis, an attempt has been made to study the kinetics and various properties of the terpolymers, such as softening temperature and chemical resistance. The system follows non‐ideal kinetics and the kinetic equation for the present system can be written as
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This non‐ideality can be explained on the basis of significant initiator‐dependent termination through primary radicals and degradative chain transfer to acrylonitrile monomer. The overall energy of activation is 72.4 kJ mol^−1^ and k~p~^2^/k~t~ is 0.26 × 10^−3^ litre mol^−1^ s^−1^.
The effects of various additives such as imidazolium‐p‐chlorophenacylide (ICPY) and ZnCl~2~ were also studied. ICPY functions as a chain transfer agent (C^tr^ = 0.43 × 10^−4^), whereas ZnCl~2~ accelerates the rate of reaction. IR spectroscopy was used to confirm the structure of the terpolymers.