(36h) Experimental and Macroscopic Mechanistic Modeling Studies of the Methyl Acrylate Self-Initiation Reaction
AIChE Annual Meeting
2017
2017 Annual Meeting
Materials Engineering and Sciences Division
Polymer Reaction Engineering
Sunday, October 29, 2017 - 5:30pm to 5:45pm
In this paper, an experimental study on the self-initiation reaction of methyl acrylate (MA) in free-radical polymerization is presented. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported experimental study of self-initiation of MA. MA conversion and polymer molecular weight measurements from free-radical MA homo-polymerization initiated by only the monomer are presented at different high temperatures. A macroscopic mechanistic model that is based on (i) already-known reaction mechanisms that contribute to the polymerization and (ii) a theoretically-identified MA self-initiation mechanism and a second-order reaction rate equation [5, 6], is presented. Using the macroscopic model, the frequency factor and activation energy of the MA self-initiation reaction are estimated from the measurements. The frequency factor and activation energy estimates are compared with predictions obtained via our purely-theoretical quantum chemical calculations (electronic-level modeling) [5, 6].
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