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Poly(ethylene terephthalate) oxidizes on being heated in air at elevated temperatures to form a crosslinked structure. The crosslinking occurs through a reaction which causes arylation of terephthalate rings to form a biphenyltricarboxylic acid derivative. This reaction is interpreted as a free‐radical cleavage generating a substituted phenyl radical which selectively attaches to a terephthalate residue via substitution.
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Nealy et al. (1971) studied this question.
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