Liu S, Srinivasan S, Tao J, Grady MC, Soroush M, Rappe AM. Modeling spin-forbidden monomer self-initiation reactions in spontaneous free-radical polymerization of acrylates and methacrylates.
J Phys Chem A 2014;
118:9310-8. [PMID:
25188223 DOI:
10.1021/jp503794j]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
A spin-forbidden reaction is a reaction in which the total electronic spin-state changes. The standard transition-state theory that assumes a reaction occurs on a single potential energy surface with spin-conservation cannot be applied to a spin-forbidden reaction directly. In this work, we derive the crossing coefficient based on the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) theory to quantify the effect of intersystem crossing on the kinetics of spin-forbidden reactions. Acrylates and methacrylates, by themselves, can generate free radicals that initiate polymerization at temperatures above 120 °C. Previous studies suggest that a triplet diradical is a key intermediate in the self-initiation. The formation of a triplet diradical from two closed-shell monomer molecules is a spin-forbidden reaction. This study provides a quantitative analysis of singlet-triplet spin crossover of diradical species in self-initiation of acrylates and methacrylates, taking into account the effect of intersystem crossing. The concept of crossing control is introduced and demonstrated computationally to be a new likely route to generate monoradicals via monomer self-initiation in high temperature polymerization.
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