Comparison of the thermo‐mechanical properties of chemically synthesized PMMA and PTEGDMA polymer

Abstract

The acrylic monomeric couple, methyl methacrylate (MMA)-triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) was mixed and polymerized through bulk polymerization in open test tubes using three different routes. The simplest one was a monomer mixture of 70 wt % of MMA and 30 wt % of TEGDMA. The polymerization reaction was initiated by benzoil peroxide (BPO). The second route used a casting syrup composed of 20 wt % polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) dissolved in 80 wt % MMA. This casting syrup was mixed with 30 wt % TEGDMA to initiate the polymerization with BPO. The final synthesis route was carried out using the aforementioned chemical composition with a polymerization initiated with a mixture of BPO and N,N dimethyl p-toluidine (DMT) at a ratio of 10 : 1. The three synthesis routes produced different types of polymers which have remarkable differences in morphology, thermal behavior, and tensile properties. Several thermal transitions were found in each type of polymer by using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Gas chromatography and Fourier transform infrared were employed to determine the cause of each thermal transition revealed.