Synthesis And Characterization Of Crosslinkable Acrylate/methyl-methacrylate Copolymer

Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is colorless and transparent, commonly known as organic glass. It can be widely used as building materials, automotive materials, aeronautical materials, medical materials, optical fiber and other fields, for its high light-transmission (rate up to 90%-92%), excellent optical properties, weather resistance, electrical insulation, good mechanical properties and favorable processing properties. However, the heat resistance of PMMA is poor, it has low glass transition temperature, and the long-term working temperature is only 60-80℃, which limit its application. Recently, polymer materials have been prepared and investigated by numerous scientists due to their easy processability, low birefringence and good optical performance; especially we can synthesize the desired polymer materials through molecular designing. PMMA has attracted widespread attention used as optical waveguide material for its high light transmittance, good electrical insulation and easy processability, but it's mutually soluble when multi-layer coating and it has low glass transition temperature, so that could not be directly used in the manufacture of optical waveguide devices.A novel crosslinkable tetrahedral methacrylate (TCS-HEMA4) compound has been synthesized through molecular designing, and it was copolymerized with methyl-methacrylate (MMA) to form the crosslinked copolymers, which could increase the stability of the polymer films by avoiding interlaminar dissolution between the linear PMMA chains, also because of three-dimensional crosselinked structure, the copolymers exhibited higher glass transition temperature.The novel crosslinkable TCS-HEMA4 was synthesized; PTA-HEMA2 and BTA-HEMA3 were synthesized as contrast model. Each product was determined by FTIR spectrum.TCS-HEMA4/MMA, PTA-HEMA2MMA and BTA-HEMA3/MMA copolymers were prepared in different proportion. The copolymers were determined by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The results showed that the copolymers had higher glass transition temperature compared with PMMA, and the thermal decomposition temperature had significantly increased. At the same time, with the increasing of crosslinking degree, the copolymers exhibited high glass transition temperature; especially the improvement degree of thermal decomposition temperature is more evident.