Synthesis, Characterization, and Solution Properties of Acrylic Ester Polymers

Abstract

Free radical solution polymerization has been employed to synthesize homopolymers of vinyl acetate (VAc), cyclohexyl acrylate (CA), benzyl acrylate (BA), and other various acrylates. The method was also used to synthesize copolymers of vinyl acetate with these various acrylates at 50:50 (v/v) feed ratio. To compute reactivity ratios of monomers in P(VAc-CA) and P(VAc-BA), a series of copolymers in the feed ratio of 80:20, 60:40, 50:50, 40:60, and 20:80 (v/v) of VAc and either CA or BA were also synthesized. Fineman-Ross and Kelen-Tudos methods were used to compute reactivity ratios from 1 H-NMR spectroscopic data. The homopolymers and copolymers were characterized by FTIR, 1 H- and 13 C-NMR, TGA, GPC, and viscosity measurements. The activation energy of decomposition (E a ) of the polymers was calculated from TGA analysis using the Broido method. M n , M w , and MWD of the polymers were evaluated from GPC data. The intrinsic viscosities of polymer, in non-theta and in theta (θ) solvents were evaluated using a capillary viscometer. Using intrinsic viscosity and GPC data, the voluminosity (V E ), shape factor ( x ), activation parameters of viscous flow, root-mean-square end-to-end distance ( d R 2 ¢ 1/2 ), radius of diffusing particle (r'), and diffusion coefficient (D o ) were also computed at various temperatures.