STUDY OF THE DEGRADATION KINETICS OF COPOLYMERS OF ACRYLONITRILE

The degradation of acrylonitrile(AN) copolymer at low temperature(below 350 ℃) in air was studied by the infrared spectroscopy and thermogravimetry. The effect of reaction temperature, time and comonomers NVP and IA on degradation rate was discussed. It shows that the copolymer starts to degrad as the temperature above 160 ℃. During 180 ℃~220 ℃, the degradation rate is the fastest. The copolymers of AN and N-vinylpyrrolidone(NVP) have an induction period of about 15 minutes. When the comonomer NVP concentration in copolymer is less than 11%, the rate of degradation increases rapidly with the comononer concentration rising, and above a certain threshold of the comononer concentration(11%), the rate becomes almost equivalently.