http://www.ccl.net/cca/software/MS-WIN95-NT/copolymerization_for_windows/ce_tutorial.tex.shtml
CCL ce_tutorial.tex
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Many commercial polymers are currently prepared
by free-radical copolymerization of two and more monomers.
With increasing number $m$ of their types good prospects appear
for imparting to the products of the synthesis
a variety of service properties.
However, as $m$ grows, the extent of experimental investigations
to be performed for revealing optimum conditions for the process
of manufacturing of copolymers with desired properties
dramatically increases.
Establishing the dependence of these latter on initial stoichiometry
of monomers and the degree of their conversion
by straightforward exhaustive search of possible variants
within whole range of initial monomer mixture composition
presents rather tedious experimental task even for terpolymerization.
In the case of copolymerization of more than three monomers involved
the solution of this problem calls for substantially greater amount
of time consuming routine experimental work.
That is why in designing of processes of synthesis
of multicomponent copolymers the mathematical modeling method
proves to be of prime importance,
which enables a researcher to calculate promptly
the values of statistical characteristics of molecular structure
of these copolymers as well as to predict
some of their performance properties.
You could carry out this procedure for the products
of free-radical copolymerization of up to $m=6$ monomers
using the program Copolymerization Explorer''
constituting present package.
Other program, Copolymerization Kinetics'',
is intended to find the dependence of the copolymerization rate
on time or monomer conversion proceeding from experimental data
you obtained by either dilatometry or calorimetry technique.

Mathematical models underlying the programs of present package
are commonly recognized in polymer science.
The validity of the results,
which can be achieved by means of these programs,
is ensured by solid physico-chemical experimental verification
for great number of real systems.
Essential advantage of this package's programs,
favoring their ample usage in practice,
is the fact that necessary input parameters
(such, for instance, as reactivity ratios,
the Flory-Huggins parameters, glass transition temperatures)
characterize either homopolymers or binary copolymers.
The values of these parameters are presently available in literature
for many particular polymers
which provides you a possibility in many cases
to start working with the programs immediately
skipping preliminary stage of some additional experiments.

When conducting any copolymerization process
you inevitably come up against the problem of characterization
of the products synthesized.
One of the main objectives for which the program
Copolymerization Explorer'' has been designed
consists in rendering you support in the solution of this problem
by means of mathematical modeling method.
With this software modeling tool at your disposal
you may immediately proceed to the calculation
of the composition microstructure parameters
as well as composition distribution of copolymers
at any values of conversion of monomers.
The number of their types may vary within the range from $2$ to $6$
inclusive which provides a possibility to employ this program
for characterization of multicomponent copolymers.
Just for them the advantages of the method of mathematical modeling
are especially strongly pronounced,
since it makes possible to avoid a great deal of routine work
associated with performing physico-chemical experiments.

The second target, the program is aimed at,
is associated with the prediction of such
critically important properties of polymers
as their transparency and heat resistance.
When designing new materials, for instance plastics,
on the base of copolymers the problem generally encountered
by a researcher is connected with the area of compositions
where these copolymers are transparent.
The knowledge of particular range of compositions
where the products of radical copolymerization
will be at given temperature in the glassy state
is equally important for practice.
In order to have such an information
it is necessary to find the dependence
of the glass transition temperature of a copolymer
on its composition and monomer conversion
under which the copolymer of interest was prepared.
Experimental finding of this dependence along with
revealing the transparency regions even for the products
of binary copolymerization is rather time consuming procedure,
not to mention the terpolymers and, particularly,
multicomponent copolymers for which the body of experimental work
is known to enhance critically.
The program in hand, being an efficient time and money saver,
furnishes for you an opportunity to avoid this tedious procedure
and to have the information you are interested in
displayed right on your computer's screen.

The programs of the package have highly intuitive
user-friendly interface.
To try the Copolymerization Explorer'' download
the archive, unzip it and run the Setup.
To get an idea of the potentialities
of the program load one of the predefined
base variants (by selecting {\bf Load Base Variant} option
and perform calculations by clicking on the {\bf Compute!}
Many of the special terms encountered in the programs
should be readily familiar to those dealing
However, an extensive help is also provided
(the help file is located in the same directory
with the program).

Here is the list of programs currently present
in the Copolymerization for Windows'' software package:
\begin{itemize}
\item  Copolymerization Explorer
\item  Copolymerization Kinetics
\end{itemize}
If you want to get any additional information on
the package you may contact
Semion Kuchanov at kuchanov@orc.ru.

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 Modified: Tue Jan 14 21:32:09 2003 GMT Page accessed 5116 times since Thu Jan 16 03:14:18 2003 GMT