Studies on Aqueous Polymerization of Acryionitriie Initiated by Ce(IV)-Amino Acid Redox Pair

Aqueous polymerization of acryionitriie initiated by the Ce(IV)-glycine redox pair was studied at 35°C under nitrogen. The rate of polymerization, Rp, was found to be approximately proportional to the square of the monomer concentration within the range of 0.140s–1.268 M. R was also found to increase with glycine concentration in the interval 0.1 to 0.4 M and decrease with cerie ion concentration. The activation energy was estimated to be 25.8 kcal/mol. A suitable kinetic scheme was proposed and explained in the light of these experimental findings. The end-group in the polymer was characterized by IR spectra, and the average molecular weight of the polymer was found to be 84,100.