Nonisothermal Kinetics of Free-Radical Polymerization of 2,2-Dinitropropyl Methacrylate

The 2,2-dinitropropyl methacrylate (DNPMA) was synthesized by esterification of α-methacrylic acid with 2,2-dinitropropanol. The free-radical bulk polymerization of DNPMA in the presence of 2,2-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) in the nonisothermal mode. Kissinger, Ozawa and Barrett methods were applied to determine the activation energy (E_a) and the reaction order of the free-radical polymerization. The results showed that the temperature of exothermic polymerization peaks increased with increasing heating rate. With increasing the molar ratio of monomer/initiator and the heating rate, the reaction order of nonisothermal polymerization was approximately equal to 1. The average E_a value from Kissinger and Ozawa methods (77.74±1.07 kJ/mol) was smaller than the value from the Barrett method (E_a102.36 kJ/mol).