Synthesis, characterization and kinetics of terpolymerization of acrylonitrile, N‐vinyl pyrrolidone and styrene

Abstract

AbstractSynthesis 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 equation image 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 kp2/kt is 0.26 × 10−3 litre mol−1 s−1.The effects of various additives such as imidazolium‐p‐chlorophenacylide (ICPY) and ZnCl2 were also studied. ICPY functions as a chain transfer agent (Ctr = 0.43 × 10−4), whereas ZnCl2 accelerates the rate of reaction. IR spectroscopy was used to confirm the structure of the terpolymers.