The Effect of Polymerization Temperature on the Properties of Polyvinyl Fluoride Polymerization in Supercritical Carbon Dioxide

Abstract

The ongoing search for environmentally friendlier alternative to the organic solvents used in chemical processes has led to the development of technologies based on supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2), which is non-flammable, non-toxic and relatively inert fluid. Polymer chemistry does not escape this trend. Fluoropolymers prepared in scCO2 have many special properties, which are different from fluoropolymers that use water as the reaction medium, this paper studies the effect of polymerization temperature on polyvinyl fluoride polymerization in supercritical carbon dioxide. The results show that as the polymerization temperature increases, the intrinsic viscosity and shear viscosity of the polymer gradually decreases; at the same time, the increasing of polymerization temperature leads to higher proportion of irregular structure of the polymer, which causes lower melting point and lower crystallinity, and the film prepared by the resin also exhibits a higher visible light transmittance. The above results show that the resin polymerized in supercritical carbon dioxide can impart better performance to conventional polymerization, which expands the potential application fields of the resin.