| Abstract: | Traveling polymerization fronts in unstirred solutions of methylmethacrylate, methacrylic acid, or acrylamide with some free radicals initiators (through thermal decomposition) have been observed experimentally. A local heating of the initial reactant mixture, under suitable conditions, leads to a reaction front that propagates along the space coordinate with a constant velocity. In this article, a physical interpretation of this phenomenon is provided through a mathematical model that accounts for the depolimerization reaction and is based on the constant pattern approach. Moreover, an approximate explicit analytic expression for the velocity of propagation of the polymerization front is proposed. The theoretical values are compared with those measured experimentally as a function of the initiator concentration for different addition polymerization systems. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 35:1047–1059, 1997 |
