Mechanism of crosslinking in benzoyl peroxide‐initiated functionalization of vinyltriethoxysilane onto polypropylene in the water medium

Abstract Silane grafting and moisture crosslinking is one of the most common methods in the production of crosslinked polyolefin. A remarkable increase in the percentage of gel in the product was observed in benzoyl peroxide‐mediated aqueous suspension grafting of vinyltriethoxysilane onto polypropylene. Aimed to explore the crosslinking reaction mechanism in this functionalization process, comprehensive experiments had been conducted and the grafted products were characterized by mass spectrometry, 1 H NMR, and 29 Si NMR spectroscopy. Finally, a novel crosslinking mechanism was proposed based on the characterization results.