Kinetics of copolymerization reactions of diallyldimethylammonium chloride (DADMAC) and dimethyl acrylamide (DMA) in aqueous solvent were studied by monitoring online the polymerization reactions, with highlights on features that control many aspects of the behavior of the copolymeric polyelectrolytes throughout and post-synthesis. It is known that the polymerization of ionic monomers in aqueous solution is strongly affected by electrostatic interactions. Comonomoer composition drift play an important role in defining the macroscopic characteristics and performance of copolyelectrolyte materials.  The incorporation of the cationic DADMAC was controlled by semi-batch reagent feed schemes into reactor at different flow rates, which yielded relationships between flow regimes and comonomer conversion kinetics, copolymer weight average molecular weight and viscosity. The change in the monomer feed rates during reaction allowed simultaneous influence on and verification of the evolution of these parameters during synthesis. Multi-detector size exclusion chromatography was used to cross-check results and measure full distributions of endproducts.

Monitoring copolyelectrolyte synthesis during semibatch polymerization reactions

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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