Steric hindrance effects on dielectric relaxation and polymerization kinetics of a monoamine-triepoxide mixture, thermochemistry, and diffusion control

Abstract

Calorimetry and dielectric relaxation spectroscopy during the growth of a polymer network in the stoichiometric mixture of a triepoxide with 4-chloroaniline have been performed in separate experiments to investigate the increase in the relaxation time with the number of covalent bonds. A comparison with the corresponding study of triepoxide–aniline and triepoxide–3-chloroaniline mixtures shows that steric hindrance of the amine group by chlorine slows the molecular dynamics and the relaxation time of the state containing a fixed number of bonds. The polymerization kinetics measured during ramp heating does not yield a reliable activation energy. A recent empirical relation between the relaxation time and the extent of polymerization, and the condition for the onset of diffusion-control kinetics have been examined using the data for these three polymerizing mixtures. The results show substantial deviations from the empirical relation and appear to conflict with our basic understanding of the polymerization process. It is shown mathematically that features attributed to the onset of diffusion-controlled kinetics can arise from thermochemical behavior alone, without reference to the molecular dynamics. An earlier theory for the change in the kinetics of an addition reaction from mass control to diffusion control has been considered, and is seen as relevant to the polymerization reactions. It is argued that the dielectric relaxation rate does not directly indicate the chemical reaction rate because the reorientational motion of the dipolar entities may not be coupled to the rotational and translational diffusion that brings the sterically hindered chemically reacting sites together. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci B: Polym Phys 36: 2703–2716, 1998