Effects of percent weight of divinylbenzene as crosslinking agent on the properties of eugenol-divinylbenzene copolymers

Abstract

Synthesis of eugenol-divinylbenzene copolymers were carried out by reacting eugenol with various percent weight of divinylbenzene in a reactor at room temperature for 24 hours in the presence of sulfuric acid as a catalyst. Methanol was used to quench the copolymerization process. The effect of DVB mass on copolymer properties was studied based on molecular weight, thermal stability, surface morphology and swelling degree of the copolymers produced. The weight percent of the added DVB was responsible for the molecular weight of the copolymer by multiplying the site for propagation in the copolymerization process. In addition, the greater DVB used the better thermal resistance of polymer is obtained, which is possibly due to the higher number of DVB causing the larger cross-linked polymer network to increase the polymer bond thermal resistance. The swelling degree value was also affected by the number of crosslinkers used, in which make the polymer material become harder to expand. However, the influence of the weight percent of DVB was not seen on the copolymer morphology.