Prev. Article Next Article Table of Contents

Article

Use of a Reliable Homemade Dilatometer To Study the Kinetics of the Radical Chain Polymerization of PMMA: An Undergraduate Polymer Chemistry Laboratory Kinetics Experiment

Your current credentials do not allow retrieval of the full text.

Purchase the full-text

PDF/HTML,
figures/images,
references and tables,
(where available)

Olga Martín , Francisco Mendicuti and Maria Pilar Tarazona

Departamento de Química Física, Universidad de Alcalá, 28871 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain

J. Chem. Educ., 1998, 75 (11), p 1479

DOI: 10.1021/ed075p1479

Publication Date (Web): November 1, 1998

Section:

History, Education, and Documentation

Abstract

In this laboratory experiment, a simple, reliable homemade dilatometer was used to study the kinetics of the radical chain polymerization of PMMA. The reaction was carried out in toluene with benzoyl peroxide as the initiator at a temperature of 80 °C. Each student studied the kinetics at a different initiator concentration constant. Pseudo-first-order plots permit students to obtain k_app and to demonstrate order 1 with respect to the monomer concentration. Finally, a log-log plot of k_app versus the initiator concentration from the data collected by each student demonstrates order 0.5 with respect to the initiator concentration. Results also agree with the rate constants of the process implicated in this type of polymerization.