Water-soluble copolymers of acrylamide with diacetone–acrylamide and N-t-butylacrylamide on aqueous montmorillonite surface: synthesis and characterisation

The copolymerisation of acrylamide (AM) with N-(1,1-dimethyl-3-oxybutyl)acrylamide (DAAM) and N-t-butylacrylamide (N-t-BAM) by FeIII-thiourea redox initiator has been studied by loading the FeIII ions in the interlayer spaces of montmorillonite prior to the polymerisation reaction. The values of r1r2 have been determined as 0.43 for the AM:DAAM monomer pair and 0.70 for the AM:N-t-BAM pair. The intrinsic viscosities of the copolymers were found to decrease with an increase in the feed composition of DAAM or N-t-BAM. The microstructure of copolymers including mean sequence length distribution is predicted for a range of feed compositions through the knowledge of reactivity ratios.