Studying the Thermodegradation of Polymers Based on Oligoester(meth)acrylates

The thermal stability of polymers based on oligoester(meth)acrylates (OCM-2, PEGDM-n (n = 210, 550, 750), PETA) as a function of the nature of the monomer, quinone concentration in the photoinitiating system, monomer conversion, and radical polymerization method is studied by thermogravimetric analysis. Of the studied polymers, polyPETA synthesized by sequential photo- and heat-curing exhibits the highest thermal stability. The other polymers have comparable thermal stability. It is shown that the polymer degradation temperature increases with an increase in monomer conversion and elongation of the polyethylene glycol linker. The effective activation energies for thermal degradation processes are calculated by the Friedman and Vyazovkin methods.