The copolymerisation of tetrahydrofurfuryl methacrylate and methyl methacrylate

Abstract

Abstract The bulk copolymerisations of tetrahydrofurfuryl methacrylate, THFMA, and methyl methacrylate, MMA, were carried to low conversion at 60 °C, using benzoyl peroxide, BPO, as the initiator. The compositions of the copolymers were determined using 13C NMR spectroscopy. The glass transition temperatures of the copolymers were determined using differential scanning calorimetry. From the compositional data, the statistical F-test revealed that both the terminal and penultimate models adequately describe the copolymerisation at the 95% confidence level. However, further statistical analysis showed that no significant improvement in fit was evident when considering the penultimate model over the simpler terminal model. Therefore, on the basis of the terminal model, the reactivity ratios were evaluated using a non-linear least squares analysis and were found to be rT = 1.06 and rM=0.81 for THFMA and MMA, respectively. Tacticity splittings of the methyl signal in the 13C NMR spectra were consistent with the Bernoullian distribution of stereoregularity. The iso-tacticity parameters were found to be δ TT = 0.24, δ MM = 0.22 and δ ∗ =0.20 . The glass transition temperatures of the prepared polymers were fitted to the Gordon-Taylor equation and the value of the Gordon-Taylor constant, K, was found to be 1.36 suggesting larger contributions from MMA, compared to THFMA, to the observed glass transition temperatures.