Study on suspension copolymerization rate of vinyl chloride/N-phenylmaleimide

The copolymerization rate of vinyl chloride(VC)/N-phenylmaleimide (PMI) was investigated. The cross termination constant phi was measured to be 8.3 by using nonlinear least square fitting. The value showed that the cross term ination was significant. A model of the copolymerization rate of VC/PMI was obtained. Using the calculated modeling parameters, the effects of tempera ture and initiator concentration on the copolymerization rate were predicte d. The predicted values were in good agreement with the experimental data. Acrylonitrile, a third monomer, was selected to reduce the range of copolym er composition of this system, but it further lowered the copolymerization rate. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.