Polymerization Kinetics of Water-Soluble N-Vinyl Monomers in Aqueous and Organic Solution

Free-radical batch polymerization (FRP) of N-vinyl pyrrolidone (NVP) and N-vinyl formamide (NVF) monomers in aqueous solution as well as NVP polymerization in organic (n-butanol) solution has been studied. The differences found in rate of monomer conversion with monomer and solvent choice correlates well with the differences in values of the propagation rate coefficients (k(p)) and their variation with monomer concentration measured in independent pulsed-laser polymerization studies, a result demonstrating that a generalized understanding of water-soluble vinyl monomers can be obtained once their k(p) differences have been accounted for. A reasonable representation of polymer molecular mass averages and the complete molecular mass distributions for the three systems was obtained by assuming that the rate coefficient for transfer to monomer, polymer, and organic solvent also vary as a function of monomer concentration.