| Abstract: | Several vinyl polymers have been grafted onto nylon 6. 6 with ceric salts as initiators. Some factors influencing the polymerisation of acrylic acid have been examined in detail, and evidence obtained that the products are true graft copolymers. Grafting of both 2–vinylpyridine and 4–vinylpyridine is slow from solutions in dilute sulphuric acid or nitric acid, but rapid from perchloric acid. Slow diffusion of initiator into polyamide fibres is apparently responsible for a non–uniform distribution of polymer sometimes observed. Nylon 6. 6 is oxidised slowly, but extensively, by cerie salts and the reaction is accelerated by oxygen. Analyses of the products are consistent with oxidation at methylene groups adjacent to the amide nitrogen rather than at amine end–groups. A paradox, thatdinitrophenylation renders nylon less susceptible to grafting of poly(acrylic acid), but not to oxidation by eerie salts, is tentatively explained. The surface electrical resistivity of nylon fabric is not lowered by grafted polyacrylamide or its N–alkyl derivatives, whilst salts of poly(acrylic acid) and poly(vinylpyridines) impart only a temporary lowering. Poly(1–rnethyl–4–vinylpyridinium) perchlorate was more permanently effective. Attempts to polymerise some potentially antistatic betaine–type monomers in nylon were unsuccessful. |
