Vinyl Acetate Synthesis Lab Report

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Polyethylene Vinylacetate (EVA) Student Name Pathik Patel, ID Number #20638625; E-mail: pd6patel@uwaterloo.ca

1. Introduction and Applications:
Ethene, but-3-enoic acid (IUPAC name), commonly known as poly(ethylene-vinyl acetate) (PEVA), as the name suggest, is the copolymer made up of ethylene monomer and vinyl acetate (VA) monomer. It is produced by addition reaction mechanism with free radical initiation. It has a chemical formula of (C2H4)n(C4H6O2)m.

Depending upon the weight percent of vinyl acetate, we get different polymers such as vinyl acetate modified polymer (4% VA), thermoplastic ethylene vinyl acetate (4 - 40% VA) and ethylene vinyl acetate rubber (>40% VA) with the remainder being ethylene. Properties such as toughness, …show more content…

Synthesis, Mechanism and Production
In free-radical co-polymerizations, the different reactivity of the growing polymer chain toward two different monomer molecules and the possibility of chain transfer reactions make calculations to predict polymer kinetics and composition extremely difficult.

The first equation shows ethylene-terminated polymer radical reacting with vinyl acetate, and the second equation shows vinyl acetate terminated polymer radical reacting with ethylene. The propagation rate coefficient are used to find the reactive ratios. It is even possible to consider the effects of penultimate groups. It is observed that longer alkyl chain has little effect on the kinetic parameters. However, it was noted that there is a relatively small penultimate unit effect, if any, for this copolymerization.

The reactivity ratios for ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymerization have been measured by a number of workers, and vary from r1 = 0.13 to 0.88 and r2 = 0.72 to 3.74, where r1 = k11/k12 and r2 = k22/k21.
Reactivity ratios are sensitive to reaction temperature, pressure and media, which accounts in part for the broad range reported. the lower temperature and higher pressure conditions increases the reactivity ratios slightly. The table below depicts Reactivity Ratios at Various Temperatures for Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate Co-Polymerization, Where 1 = Ethylene and 2 = Vinyl

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