Rapid thermal degradation of a copolymer at high temperatures gives monomers, yield of which, however, differs from that of monomers produced by pyrolysis of each component homopolymer. The difference is attributed to a different probability of splitting off of a monomer unit from the end of the polymer chain having a free radical according whether the neighboring monomer unit is same or not. This phenomenon is called “boundary effect”.
In the present paper a method for quantitative evaluation of the boundary effect is proposed. To this purpose a parameter β
A is defined as β
A= (
PAA-PAB)/P
AA, where
PAA and
PAB are the probabilities of splitting off of a monomer unit A bounded by a monomer unit A and B respectively.
β
A is a constant depending solely on the degradation temperature and the combination of the two monomer species. For a given combination of monomers it can be calculated using the following equation from the monomer yield on pyrolysis of a random copolymer of known composition.
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whereƒis the molar ratio of monomers in feed; r
1 is the copolymerization reactivity ratio of A monomer;
Y0 (A) and
Y (A) are yields of A monomer from homopolymer and copolymer respectively;φ
A is mol fraction of A unit in the copolymer.
If α
A is defined as the fraction of A unit having the same neighboring unit relative to the total A unit in the copolymer, it is calculated from the equation α
A=1-{
Y0 (A)-Y (A) /φ
A}/Φ
Aβ
A.
α
A is a parameter expressing the structural distribution of A units in the copolymer. When β
A of A-B copolymer has been known, α
A can be determined and an information on the structural distribution of unknown sample may be obtained.
β
A's for the styrene-acrylonitrile copolymer and for the styrene-methyl methacrylate copolymer were determined by gas chromatographic analysis of monomer yields of several samples of known compositions, and the constancy of β
A regardless of the length of sequence was ascertained. Parameters of the structural distribution α
A of several commercial St-AN copolymers were also determined.
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