The influence of branching architecture on scission in modeling free-radical polymerization with long chain branching and scission

In modeling molecular weight (MWD) and degree of branching (DBD) distributi on for radical polymerization systems, assumptions have to be made concerni ng the length and the number of branches of fragments from scission reactio ns. The linear-chain approximation with respect to scission kinetics usuall y applied is shown to be incorrect. A new method is proposed based on a mec hanistic model predicting architectures. It is shown that a simple short/lo ng chain fragment scission assumption significantly changes the predicted M WD.