Modeling of Polymerization Kinetics and Processes—from Voting to Toting

Abstract

Abstract The reaction at the heart of radical polymerization is: Termed propagation, it now occurs to the tune of a stupendous 100 million tons per annum. It is therefore no surprise that right from the moment the mechanism of radical polymerization was first elucidated, which was in the late 1930s, there has been strong interest in determining propagation rate coefficients, k p. After 50 years of mortal toil, the state of play in this regard was captured by Fig. 1, which presents bulk polymerization values of k p for methyl methacrylate (Y = CH3, X = CO–O–CH3) from the 1989 edition of the Polymer Handbook [1], a compendium of polymer-related data.