THE COPOLYMERIZATION OF TETRAHYDROFURFURYL METHACRYLATE AND METHYL-METHACRYLATE

The bulk copolymerisations of tetrahydrofurfuryl methacrylate, THFMA, and methyl methacrylate, MMA, were carried to low conversion at 60 deg rees C, using benzoyl peroxide, BPO, as the initiator. The composition s of the copolymers were determined using C-13 NMR spectroscopy. The g lass transition temperatures of the copolymers were determined using d ifferential scanning calorimetry. From the compositional data, the sta tistical F-test revealed that both the terminal and penultimate models adequately describe the copolymerisation at the 95% confidence level. However, further statistical analysis showed that no significant impr ovement in fit was evident when considering the penultimate model over the simpler terminal model. Therefore, on the basis of the terminal m odel, the reactivity ratios were evaluated using a non-linear least sq uares analysis and were found to be r(T)=1.06 and r(M)=0.81 for THFMA and MMA, respectively. Tacticity splittings of the methyl signal in th e C-13 NMR spectra were consistent with the Bernoullian distribution o f stereoregularity. The iso-tacticity parameters were found to be thet a(TT)=0.24, theta(MM)=0.22 and theta=0.20. The glass transition tempe ratures of the prepared polymers were fitted to the Gordon-Taylor equa tion and the value of the Gordon-Taylor constant, K, was found to be 1 .36 suggesting larger contributions from MMA, compared to THFMA, to th e observed glass transition temperatures. Copyright (C) 1996 published by Elsevier Science Ltd.