Thermal stability and degradation ofpoly(N-p-tolylacrylamide)homopolymer and copolymer of N-p-tolylacrylamide with methyl methacrylate

Different concentrations of copolymer of n-p-tolylacrylamide(taa)with methyl methacrylate (mma) were prepared and the reactivity ratio values of copolymerization were calculated using 1h-nmr technique. thermal analysis of the copolymers showed that the thermal stability are intermediate between poly(n-p-tolylacrylamide) (ptaa)and poly(methyl methacrylate) (pmma)homopolymers. thermal degradation products of the ptaa were identified by gc-ms techniques. it seems that the mechanism of degradation of ptaahomopolymer is characterized by free radical formation followed by recombination along the backbone chain. the activation energies of the thermal degradation of the copolymers were calculated using arrhenius relationship.