Preparation Of Quaternary Ammonium Salt Cationic Polyelectrolytes By Plasma Induced Polymerization

Polymerization of acrylamide (AM) with (2-methacryloyloxyethyl) thrimethyl ammonium chloride (DMC) in aqueous solution by plasma induced polymerization has been studied, and linear copolymer Poly(AM-DMC) was obtained. The boiling points of cooling solution in different reactor pressure were tested. The factors influencing the intrinsic viscosity of the copolymer were optimized as follows: polymerization time 24h, polymerization temperature 40℃, monomer concentration 30wt%, discharge time 40 s, discharge power 60W and pH value of aqueous solution 4.5. The highest intrinsic viscosity of the linear copolymer could be 966cm³/g. The mechanism of this polymerization was also studied based on the experimental date. The results showed that living radical was HAM which was composed of AM and H⁺.Plasma induced polymerization of (2-methacryloyloxyethyl) thrimethyl ammonium chloride was also studied in this paper. The effects of discharge time, discharge power on reactor temperature were measured, and it was found that the changing of reactor temperature could influenc the properties of Poly(DMC) obviously. The results showed that when the reactor temperature was lower than 130℃, Poly(DMC) was linear, and its highest intrinsic viscosity could be 420.2cm³/g. When the reactor temperature was more than 130℃, Poly(DMC) were molecules crosslinked each other, and its rate of absorbing water was 15g/g. The polymerization condition of linear Poly(DMC) were optimized as follows: discharge time 60s, discharge power 60W, reactor temperature 80℃, and in this condition, the highest intrinsic viscosity of Poly(DMC) was 420.2cm³/g and the monomer conversion was 83.3%. Moreover, the calculated result identified that plasma induced polymerization of DMC was feasible in theory.Dispersion polymerization of Poly(AM-DMC) has been successfully performed in potassium carbonate (K₂CO₃) solution by plasma induced polymerization. K₂CO₃ solution was selected because not only the higher solubility of AM and DMC comparing with that of Poly(AM-DMC), but the higher intrinsic viscosity of Poly(AM-DMC) could be obtained. A setof experiments were performed using different concentration of K2CO3 solution (from 50wt% down to 10wt%), thus the dispersion architecture was not obtained below 20wt%. When it was performed using K2CO3 solution that of above 20wt%, the dispersion architecture was obtained. The effects of concentration of K2CO3 solution on particles size, particles size distribution and intrinsic viscosity of Poly(AM-DMC) were also summarized in this paper. The factors were optimized as follows: polymerization temperature 30°C, discharge time 35s, discharge power 60W, and in this condition the highest intrinsic viscosity of Poly(AM-DMC) was 455cm3/g, and monomer conversion was 58%, and K2CO3 residue in copolymer particles was 5.3wt%.