Charge Transfer Copolymerisation and Sequence-Length Distribution of Methylmethacrylate with Acrylonitrile and Methacrylonitrile

Abstract Copolymers of methylmethacrylate (MMA) with acrylonitrile (AN) and methacrylonitrile (MAN) were synthesized by a charge-transfer mechanism using a mixture of n-Butylamine (nBA) and carbon-tetrachlgride (CCA) as the initiator in dimethyl sulfoxide at 60 C and 80 e respectively. The percentage composition of the copolymer was established by elemental analysis. The reactivity ratios of AN-MMA and MAN-MMA copolymers were determined by both Fineman-Ross (F-R) and Kelen-Tudos (K-T) methods. For AN-MMA system, the values are r1 = 0.35 ± 0.03 (AN), r2 = 1.49 ± 0.02 (MMA) by F-R method while r1 = 0.34 ± 0.04 and r2 = 1.49 ± 0.02 by K-T method. Similarly, for MAN-MMA system, r1 = 1.10 ± 0.01 (MAN) and r2 = 0.25 ± 0.05 (MMA) by F-R method and r1 = 1.10 ± 0.02 and r2 = 0.27 ± 0.03 by K-T method. These values indicate that the system follows random distribution of the monmeric units. The copolymers were characterized by IR, 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR spectroscopy and viscosity. The mean sequence lengths (5) and probabil...