SYNTHESIS AND PROPERTIES OF SEMIINTERPENETRATING NETWORK-BASED ON STYRENE-ACRYLONITRILE-VINYL ACETATE TERPOLYMER AND ZINC ACRYLATE

Semi-interpenetrating polymer network materials (semi IPNs) have been synthesized from styrene-acrylonitrile-vinyl acetate terpolymer as pol ymer I and zinc acrylate as polymer II, using divinyl benzene as cross linking agent for polymer II. The terpolymer was pre-synthesized by a radical polymerization method using AIBN as the radical initiator. The terpolymer has been characterized by IR and elemental analysis. The c omposition (Sty:AN:VAc) = (0.25:0.50:0.25), the intrinsic viscosity (0 .16 dl/g), the softening temperature range (180-185 degrees C), the gl ass transition temperature (23 degrees C) and the thermal stability (u p to 300 degrees C) of the terpolymer were determined. The IPN was cha racterized by determining its density (1.12 g/cc at 30 degrees C), mol ecular weight between crosslinks (M(c) = 1469), thermal stability (sim ilar to 400 degrees C), glass transition temperature (41 degrees C, 78 degrees C) and two-phase morphology.