KINETICS OF OXIDATION OF AZOBENZENE NITRE NE WITH MOLECULAR-OXYGEN INAMORPHOUS POLYMERS

Kinetics of disappearance of azobenzene nitrene at 115-120 K in PMMA, PS, PC and PSF films saturated with oxygen has been studied,For condit ions of oxygen excess the disappearance of nitrenes is shown to be a r esult only of the reaction with the dissolved gas. Kinetics of the pro cess is identical to that of the oxidation of macroradicals in the sam e polymer. The nonexponential character of kinetic curves is shown to be related with the existence of the rate constants distribution. The values of the width of the distribution range in the narrow interval b eing practically the same for various polymers. The data about the wid th of the distribution function for the oxidation of macroradicals in amorphous polymers known from literature also fit into this interval. All the particles of a sample participating in the reaction with the e xperimental accuracy have the same dependence of the rate constant on temperature. The activation energies of reactions in various amorphous polymers have very close values.