The Solution Polymerization of Methyl Acrylate and Determination of The Chain Transfer Constant for Acetone

The initiated polymerization of methyl acrylate is studied in the presence of carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, acetone and petroleum ether at 60 °C. Benzoyl peroxide was used as the initiator. The transfer constant for acetone has been found to be 2.3 X 10-5 at 60 ° C. Using the transfer constant value found by Gadkary and Kapur [3] at 80°C for the same solvent, we have also calculated the value of Etr-S - Ep and log (Atr-S /Ap ). By measurîng the rate of polymerization of methyl acrylate in bulk, at three diffe- rent temperatures^ the apparent activation energy of polymerization has been determined. From this we have calculated the activation energy of the termination reaction, since the activation energy Ed , for the decomposition of the initiator, and Ep , for the pro- pagation reaction are konown.