Ig. Popovic et al., THE THERMAL-DEGRADATION OF POLY(DI-N-HEXYL ITACONATE) PREPARED IN THEPRESENCE OF N-DODECYL MERCAPTAN, Polymer degradation and stability, 42(3), 1993, pp. 345-349
The preparation of poly(di-n-hexyl itaconate) (PDHI) in the presence o
f the chain transfer agent n-dodecyl mercaptan resulted in polymers of
increased thermal stability, owing to the suppression of the number o
f chain terminal double bonds. The polymers were characterised by Four
ier transform IR (FTIR) spectroscopy and gel permeation chromatography
. The differential thermogravimetry (DTG) curves of all the PDHI sampl
es had two peaks, showing that degradation occurred in two stages. The
area of the lower-temperature DTG peak correlated with the number of
terminal double bonds