Characterization of polystyrene and polyacrylic based polymeric materials exposed to oxidative degradation

Abstract The characterization of oxidative degraded polystyrene-based resin (R1) and polyacrylic based resin (R2) resins in H 2 O 2 and HClO 4 degradation medium were made based on the kinetics and thermodynamic data obtained for the ion-isotopic exchange reactions using such resins. For the reactions performed by using resins degraded in H 2 O 2 medium, the reaction rate (k) values obtained for the fresh R1 (0.315 min –1 ) and R2 (0.187 min –1 ) resins decreases to 0.300 and 0.155 min –1 respectively for the resins degraded in 20% H 2 O 2 medium, which further decreases to 0.289 and 0.142 min –1 respectively for the resins degraded in 30% H 2 O 2 medium. A similar trend in the results were observed for the reactions performed by using the above resins degraded in HClO 4 medium. The higher values of k (min –1 ) and low values of various thermodynamic parameters for the ion-isotopic exchange reactions performed by using fresh and degraded polystyrene-based resin R1 resins suggests superior degradation stability as compared to polyacrylic based R2 resin.