Autocatalysis during the thermal dehydrochlorination of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is shown to be a free-radical process that converts the ordinary monomer units of the polymer into chloroallylic structures that have low thermal stabilities. In the first stage of dehydrochlorination, conjugated polyene sequences are created by a nonfree-radical route. They react with HCl to give cation monoradicals and/or excited cation diradicals. One or both of these species, or other radicals formed from them, can then abstract methylene hydrogen in order to produce new radicals that are also carbon-centered. These are converted by chlorine-atom β scission into the chloroallylic segments, which start the growth of new polyenes in the usual (nonradical) way. At 180 °C in solid PVC, autocatalysis was inhibited by free-radical scavengers (a hindered phenol, triphenylmethane, and metallic mercury) but greatly enhanced by an increased concentration of HCl when all-trans-β-carotene, a model for PVC polyene sequences, was introduced simultaneously. When they were subjected to autocatalytic conditions, other model compounds gave products that apparently resulted from the abstraction of hydrogen by free-radical intermediates.

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Organic thiols containing at least one carboxylate ester group (ester thiols) are excellent thermal stabilizers for both rigid and plasticized poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC). Their mechanism of action is shown to involve the deactivation of unstable structural defects by nucleophilic chloride displacement, the retardation and removal of coloration through thiol additions to polyene double bonds, and the prevention of autoacceleration during thermal dehydrochlorination through polyene shortening reactions and the scavenging of free radicals formed from polyenes and HCl. An unusually facile displacement of labile chloride that is favored by thiol acidity can account, at least in part, for the relatively high effectiveness of dipentaerythritol hexakis(mercaptoacetate) as a stabilizer. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 13:170–175, 2007. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers