Constants and parameters of radical copolymerization of poly(propylene glycol)fumarate with acrylic acid

Abstract

In the present work, the binary radical copolymerization of poly(propylene glycol)fumarate with acrylic acid in a dioxane medium was investigated for the first time at various mole ratios of the initial monomer mixture. The kinetics of the copolymerization reaction was studied. Kinetic curves show that with increasing mole fraction of acrylic acid in solution, the reaction rate and sorption capacity of copolymers also increase. The synthesized copolymers composition was determined by chromatography-mass spectrometry. The constants and parameters of radical copolymerization were calculated using the integral methods of Mayo-Lewis, Fineman-Ross and Kelen-Tüdos. The Q-e parameters were calculated by the Alfray-Price equation on the basis of copolymerization constants. A lower reactivity characterization of poly(propylene glycol)fumarate was found at copolymerization of it with acrylic acid. The relative activity r1 in the p-PGF-AA system is less than one. This suggests that the p-PGF ability to copolymerize with other monomers is higher than homopolymerization. Direct proportionality of the unsaturation degree of copolymers to the content of poly(propylene glycol)fumarate in the composition of the initial monomer mixture was shown. Thus, the results of this study show that the synthesized polymers based on PGPP have good characteristics and can be used in various fields of science.