Summary: Methacrylate copolymers produced under higher temperature starved‐feed conditions are affected by depropagation, and some binary systems also experience a penultimate effect. In this work a generalized set of equations has been developed to describe the combined effect of depropagation and penultimate copolymerization kinetics on instantaneous copolymer composition and average copolymerization rate coefficients. Limiting cases applicable to the methacrylate/styrene system are examined. When combined with depropagation, penultimate kinetics not only decrease the effective propagation rate coefficient but also deviate from terminal model predictions of polymer composition.
Copolymerization chain growth with penultimate kinetics and depropagation.
