Photodegradation of poly(vinyl esters)—I. Formation and quantitative measurement of volatile products

The high vacuum distillation technique for the analysis of photolysis products has highlighted both the extreme difficulty of removing residual solvent and the slow diffusion of photodegradation products from thin cast poly(vinyl ester) films, even at temperatures 130°C above T_g. Very long product collection periods at temperatures just below the onset of thermal degradation were used in order to obtain reliable quantitative data. The distributions of liquid-nitrogen condensable products indicated that a closer relationship exists between the photodegradation of poly(vinyl esters) and the photolysis of low molecular mass esters than previous results had suggested.