A redox‐initiated xylan–poly(sodium acrylate) graft copolymer

An aspen 4‐O‐methylglucuronoxylan was grafted with poly(sodium acrylate) (PSA) in 3.4N NaOH at 25–30°C. with the use of a persulfate–thiosulfate redox initiator system. The formation of a true graft copolymer was indicated by fractional precipitation and light‐scattering studies, physical mixtures of the two pure polymers being used as references. A grafted fraction was isolated, containing no ungrafted xylan but possibly some PSA homopolymer, which contained 96.5% PSA and 3.5% xylan, or an average of 3.2 PSA chains of M̄n approximately 90,500 per xylan chain of M̄n approximately 10,500.