Kinetics of copolymerization and degradation of poly[acrylonitrile-co-(amino ethyl-2-methyl propenoate)]

Amino ethyl-2-methyl propenoate was firstly used to successfully copolymerize with acrylonitrile in a H2O/dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) mixture between 50 °C and 70 °C under N2 atmosphere. This was achieved by using azobisisobutyronitrile as the initiator. Kinetics of copolymerization of acrylonitrile with amino ethyl-2-methyl propenoate was investigated. The kinetic equation of copolymerization was obtained and the apparent activation energy of degradation of poly[acrylonitrile-co-(amino ethyl-2-methyl propenoate)] was determined. Increasing DMSO concentration in the solvent mixture leads to a rapid increase in the degradation apparent activation energy. The apparent activation energy decreases quickly with an increase in the comononer amino ethyl-2-methyl propenoate concentration, and such a change becomes less prominent as the molar ratio of amino ethyl-2-methyl propenoate/acrylonitrile goes beyond 2/100. The apparent activation energy also increases along with the copolymerization temperature. The resultant fibers prepared from poly[acrylonitrile-co-(amino ethyl-2-methyl propenoate)] were obtained with the fineness at 1.03 dtex and the tenacity at 6.18cN dtex−1.