Numerical Analysis of Plasma Initiated Polymerization

Plasma initiated polymerization is a kind of well-known radical polymerization mechanism, but it has the 'living' polymerization feature and produces ultra-high molecular weight polymer. In order to explain such phenomena, we calculate the basic data of plasma initiated polymerization of methylmethacrylate (MMA) according to the principle of polymer physics and chemistry. It results in that the radical concentration ranges from 10-12mol/L to 10-16mol/L corresponding to the radical life in 104s to 108s, which means the radicals have a long lifetime. Moreover because of the long lifetime radicals it causes a unique feature rather than the common radical polymerization, and also shows no 'living polymerization'. It is noticed in experiments that there are two key factors playing important roles. One is the effective radical amount produced during the plasma discharging while the another is the diffusion factor