Graft Copolymerization of Pyrrolidone onto Copolymers of N-Acryloyl Pyrrolidone and Vinyl Monomers

The copolymerizations of N-acryloyl pyrrolidone (NAP) with vinyl monomers methyl methacrylate (MMA), acrylonitrile (AN) and acrylamide (AA) were carried out in dimethylformamide at 65°C using 2,2′-azobisisobutyronitrile(AIBN) as an initiator. The resulting copolymers were used as a polymeric initiator of the anionic graft copolymerization of 2-pyrrolidone. The percent grafting of 2-pyrrolidone onto vinyl copolymer backbone chain involving N-acyllactam groups was found best with copoly(NAP-co-MMA) when the KOH concentration was 0.03 M. The presence of crown ether increased the viscosity of graft copolymers and accelerated the initial rate of anionic graft copolymerization.