Copolymerization of N-Vinyl pyrrolidone with methyl methacrylate by Ti(III)-DMG redox initiator

Redox copolymerization of N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone (NVP) with methyl methacrylate (MMA) was carried out using titanium(III)–dimethylglyoxime [Ti(III)-DMG] redox initiator in aqueous sulfuric acid-alcohol media. The resulting copolymer was characterized by FTIR, ¹ H-NMR, and ¹³ C-NMR spectroscopic methods and elemental analysis. Thermal properties of the copolymer were determined by differential scanning calorimetric technique and thermogravimetric analysis. The reactivity ratios of the monomers were computed by Fineman-Ross, Kelen-Tudos, and extended Kelen-Tudos methods at lower conversion. The reactivity ratios obtained r 1 (MMA) 1.69 and r 2 (NVP) 0.03 showed richer content of MMA than NVP in the copolymer having extreme ideal behavior. The distribution of monomer sequence along the copolymer chain was calculated using a statistical method based on reactivity ratios. Ti(III)-DMG redox initiator showed increased addition of NVP to MMA during copolymerization.