Kinetics and mechanism of polymerization of methyl methacrylate initiated by stibonium ylide

Homopolymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) was carried out in the presence of triphenylstibonium 1,2,3,4-tetraphenyl-cyclopentadienylide as an initiator in dioxane at 65C plus-minus0,1C. The system follows non-ideal radical kinetics (Rp^oc[M]^14 [I]^0,44) due to primary radical termination as well as degradative chain-transfer reaction. The overall activation energy and average value of kp 2 /kt were 64 kJ mol–1 and 0,173 cross 10^–3 l mol–1 s–1 respectively.