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The product is polystyrene. As alkenes can polymerize in somewhat straightforward radical reactions, they form useful compounds such as polyethylene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), [3] which are produced in high tonnages each year [3] due to their usefulness in manufacturing processes of commercial products, such as piping, insulation and packaging.
Polystyrene foam blows in the wind and floats on water due to its low specific gravity. It can have serious effects on the health of birds and marine animals that swallow significant quantities. [71] Juvenile rainbow trout exposed to polystyrene fragments show toxic effects in the form of substantial histomorphometrical changes. [72]
The easiest way to visualize the mechanism of a step-growth polymerization is a group of people reaching out to hold their hands to form a human chain—each person has two hands (= reactive sites). There also is the possibility to have more than two reactive sites on a monomer: In this case branched polymers production take place.
In one copolymer, the monomers can be almost perfectly alternating. [1] but (random) copolymerisation with less than 50% maleic anhydride content is also possible. [2] The polymer is formed by a radical polymerization, using an organic peroxide as the initiator. The main characteristics of SMA copolymer are its transparent appearance, high heat ...
It is one of the most developed methods in chain-growth polymerization. Currently, most polymers in our daily life are synthesized by free radical polymerization, including polyethylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, polymethyl methacrylate, polyacrylonitrile, polyvinyl acetate, styrene butadiene rubber, nitrile rubber, neoprene, etc.
Note that different copolymer sequencing is sufficient to define a structural difference, thus an A-B diblock copolymer with A-B alternating copolymer side chains is properly called a graft copolymer. For example, polystyrene chains may be grafted onto polybutadiene, a synthetic rubber which retains one reactive C=C double bond per repeat unit.
Maleic acid in fact does not homopolymerize in free radical polymerization, but will form an almost exclusively alternating copolymer with styrene. [8] >> >> In the initial stage of the copolymerization, monomer 1 is incorporated faster and the copolymer is rich in monomer 1. When this monomer gets depleted, more monomer 2 segments are added.
Other block copolymers also show the shape-memory effect, such as, block copolymer of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethyleneoxide (PEO), block copolymers containing polystyrene and poly(1,4-butadiene), and an ABA triblock copolymer made from poly(2-methyl-2-oxazoline) and polytetrahydrofuran.