2 research outputs found
Dielectric Properties of Free Radical Initiatorsî—¸Investigation of Thermal Decomposition Products
Studies into the phenomena that explain the dielectric
properties
of azo initiators (AMBN and V70) at high temperatures are reported
in this paper. Previous studies have successfully related the variation
in dielectric properties of these species below 110 °C to either
phase changes or the thermal production of free radicals. In the latter
case the marked increase in their response was attributed to the free
radicals having more prominent dipoles than their initiator precursors.
This study reports the results of experiments designed to explain
their observed dielectric characteristics within the temperature range
of 110–150 °C. At these elevated temperatures, the decomposition
half-life of the initiators studied should be of the order of few
seconds. However, in both this and the previous reports, the dielectric
response is found to remain at a significant level for several hours.
The two prime explanations for the unexpected duration of the increased
dielectric properties are (i) the presence of microwave induced protected
radicals or (ii) the dielectric properties of the initiator decomposition
products. The observations made in this study were subsequently used
to define that the latter of these is the key to the observed phenomenon
Mechanistic Investigation into the Accelerated Synthesis of Methacrylate Oligomers via the Application of Catalytic Chain Transfer Polymerization and Selective Microwave Heating
The
synthesis of methyl methacrylate (MMA) oligomers by catalytic chain
transfer polymerization (CCTP) is demonstrated to be significantly
accelerated by the use of microwave heating. The CCTP reactions, which
use a cobalt-based catalyst to very efficiently control the molecular
weight of the final polymer, were conducted in both a conventional
oil bath and a CEM Discover microwave reactor with a target set point
of 80 °C. The required reaction time was shown to be reduced
from 300 to 3 min, while also retaining control over the polymerization.
Additionally, for the first time the bulk temperature of these catalyzed
polymerizations was monitored in both heating methods by the use of
internal optical fiber sensors. It was demonstrated that, to monitor
the temperature of the reaction correctly, it is essential to use
an optical fiber sensor rather than the external IR sensor supplied
with the reactor. The acceleration in the synthesis during microwave
heating was attributed to selective heating of the radical and oligomeric
species within the reaction, which lead to both rapid heating of the
reaction bulk to reaction temperature and average reaction temperatures
that were higher than the chosen set point. However, comparative reactions
carried out under conventional heating (CH) conditions at the true
reaction temperature of the microwave experiments (MWH) showed that
MWH was able to produce significantly greater yields than the CH experiments
after only 3 min, indicating the existence of a real selective heating
effect during the reaction. Three methods have been investigated to
optimize the acceleration achieved in the MWH experiments while retaining
control and yield levels within the MWH experiments. These were varying
the; solvent concentration, initiator concentration and chain transfer
agent concentration. It was demonstrated that by understanding the
influence of the microwave heating that it was possible to retain
control over the molecular structure of the product polymer at the
accelerated rate