Acrylic Acid → Acrylic acid maleic acid

Participants

Reaction Steps

In a copolymer of maleic acid and acrylic acid, maleic acid reacts slower than acrylic acid. The goal of the reaction was to produce a random copolymer with a 50:50 maleic acid-acrylic acid composition. The first step was to complete a test polymerization. The reactor is initially charged with maleic acid which was 50.0 mole percent neutralized, and all of the initiator which consisted of sodium persulfate and a 10 percent hydrogen peroxide solution. An equal molar amount of acrylic acid, 51.9 percent neutralized, was slowly added over a six-our period. The polymerization was run at a temperature of between 94° C. and 98° C. for 6 hours. Agitation to provide a good vortex was used at a rate of about 40 rpm. Samples from the reaction were obtained every hour, and the amount of maleic acid determined via Liquid Chromatography. This is plotted in FIG. 2. This data was used to determine the percentage of the initial maleic acid that was consumed during the each hour of the reaction. The data are shown in Table 1.

Provenance & Evidence