CATALYTIC AMINOLYSIS OF ACRYLIC COPOLYMERS IN SOLUTION AND IN THE MELT .2. COMPARISON BETWEEN STYRENIC AND ETHYLENIC COPOLYMERS

The aminolysis of poly (styrene-co-methyl acrylate) (SMA) by octadecylamine in solution and in the melt has been reported in Part I. We now have studied the aminolysis of poly(ethylene-co-methyl acrylate) (EMA) with the same amine in the melt and compared the two sets of data in this paper. With EMA, the data confirmed and precised the catalytic mechanism proposed in Part I. The best tautomeric catalysts are the ones which form an eight-atom ring structure with the ester and amine groups. With EMA aminolysis is faster than with SMA because of the steric hindrance of phenyl groups in SMA. But EMA aminolysis remains a rather slow reaction. In a corotating twin-screw extruder the conversion was only around 4% at 220-degrees-C with a mean residence time of 150 s. It was also shown that the EMA/octadecylamine/catalyst system, like the SMA system, is homogeneous in the molten state at temperatures around 200-degrees-C.