Pyrolysis of poly(methyl methacrylate co ethyl acrylate)

Abstract

synopsisAn investigation of the behavior of poly(methy1 methacrylate co ethyl acrylate) with a commercially available fIamentAype pyrolysis unit and gas chromatogaph was conducted. It has been hypothesized that the quantity of ethyl acrylate monomer produced under the conditions of the experiment is dependent upon the number of ethyl acrylate-methyl methacrylate bonds contained in the copolymer. These observations were made possible by a standardized samples-handling technique in which a uniformsize disk was pyrolyzed a t a maximum pyrolysis temperature of 600°C. This enabled reproducible pyrolysis gas chromatograms to be obtained and permitted pyrolysis products of copolymers containing different ratios of ethyl acrylate and methyl methacrylate to be compared. An examination of sequence distribution data, obtained with the aid of a sequence distribution program for copolymers, showed sufficient agreement with the pyrolysis data to support the hypothesis. I t has been demonstrated that pyrolysis gas chromatography may be applied to experimentally determine the sequence distribution of copolymers.

Pyrolysis of random and block copolymers of ethyl acrylate and methyl methacrylate

“…Ferlauto et al 9 have shown that there is good correlation between ethyl acrylate yield and sequence distribution data for low-conversion copolymers, in which the fraction of A-B bonds remains the same as the copolymer composition is varied. They have also shown some discrepancies with this correlation in high-conversion copolymers and pointed out that this may be due to the compositional drift existing in high-conversion copolymers as the result of differences in the reactivity ratios of EA and RIIRIIA.…”