The Kinetics and Mechanism of the Thermal Dehydrochlorination of Poly(vinyl Chloride)

Poly(vinyl chloride) degrades thermally by an acceleratory reaction in which the rate of hydrogen chloride evolution is slow at the beginning, increases with time (passing through a maximum), and then decreases. A kinetic model based on the zipper mechanism shows excellent agreement with observed data from the initial to the final stages of each dehydrochlorination. Hydrogen chloride is shown to be essential for the initiation of zip chains and may or may not be essential for the zip reaction. When hydrogen chloride is removed in a stream of inert gas, as it is in some tests purported to study the kinetics of degradation, the initiation of zip chains is significantly inhibited. The zip reaction, once it has been initiated, is not inhibited or stopped even by long exposure to atmospheric conditions.