Studies on the role of vinyl polyperoxides as initiators and polymeric DI and tetrasulfides as chain transfer agents

Abstract

Terpolyperoxides of styrene, MMA and ?-methylstyrene were synthesized by polymerizing these monomers under excess oxygen pressure by varying the initial feed. The TPPEs have been characterized and it has been shown that all these monomers are present in the polymer chain. As shown by TG and DSC studies, the presence of vinyl monomers of different structure in the polymer backbone do not seem to have any significant effect on the thermal stabilities of the peroxide units even though they may be present in different environments. Formaldehyde, benzaldehyde, acetophenone and methyl pyruvate were identified as the primary degradation products of TPPE. No resolvable peaks in the proton NMR could be seen which could give information on the microstructure of TPPEs. It has been demonstrated that the conventional terpolymer equation can be used to predict the composition of TPPEs.