Study on the kinetics of VAC/DMC soap-free emulsion copolymerization

Soap-free Cationic Emulsion Copolymerization of vinyl-acetate ( VAC) with methacryloyloxyethyl trimethylammonium chloride (DMC) has been studied. The factors influencing the reaction rate were discussed, such as the comonomer concentration, initiator concentration, temperature, etc. The result of kinetics showed that the influence of comonomer concentration and initiator concentration on the rate of coplymerization could be expressed as: R-p = k(1) [ M ](0-63) [AIBA](1.0) the reaction order of VAC and DMC was: R-p = k(2) [ VAC](0.16) E [DMC](0.89), and the apparent activation energy of polymerization was 44.01 kJ . mol(-1). The mechanism of the soap free emulsion compolymerization was also discussed.