Mechanochemically initiated copolymerizations, 10. Kinetic data on the copolymerization of the acrylonitrile/vinyl acetate/α-methyl styrene ternary system by vibratory milling

The kinetics of mechanochemical copolymerization of the ternary system based on acrylonitrile, vinyl acetate, and α-methyl styrene, by vibratory milling activation was studied. A general relation for expressing the reaction rate is proposed as follows: Kinetics has been followed by measuring the amount of unreacted monomer by gas chromatography. Partial reaction orders – related to each comonomer, had almost unitary values, being determined from the conversion-time curves for 7 ternary systems with different comonomer ratios. The values of the reaction rate constant – taken for three temperatures – permitted the computation of the activation energy (18.82 kJ mol^-1), such a low value showing that the contribution of the thermal energy in this type of synthesis is unsignificant.