Kinetics and mechanism of grafting maleic anhydride to tetradecene

Abstract

The kinetics of graft copolymerization of maleic anhydride to tetracene in 1,2 – dichlorobenzene has been investigated. At high initiator concentration, the rate of disappearance of maleic anhydride is linear with time and the order with respect to initiator is close to 0.5 while the average number of maleic anhydride molecules grafted per molecule of initiator decomposed varies from 8 at high rates of initiation to 57 at low rates of initiation. The results are interpreted in terms of a chain mechanism including a propagation step in which a succinic acid molecule abstracts hydrogen from the hydrocarbon chain.

Nigerian Journal of Chemical Research Vol. 8 2003: 29-34