Investigation in Thermal Polymerization of Styrene at High Temperature

Several mechanisms for the thermal polymerization of styrene were proposed years ago. Two main mechanisms were presented by Mayo and Flory for thermal polymerization ofstyrene. According to the Mayo’s mechanism, two styrene molecules undergo a Diels-Alder reaction to yield anintermediate dimer. The reaction occurring between the dimer and a third styrene monomer generates two monoradical initiators of 1-phenyl tetraline and ethyl benzene. Themechanism proposed by Flory includes dimerizing of two styrene monomers to form a singlet 1,4-diradical. A sideproduct of the thermal polymerization of styrene is 1,2-diphenylcyclobutane [1]. The aim of this paper is to investigate the initiation mechanism of thermal polymerization of styrene using13CNMR techniques. 13CNMR is a powerful technique frequently used to study the various microstructures resulting from polymerization mechanisms