Synthesis and properties of high oil‐absorbent <i>4‐tert</i>‐butylstyrene‐EPDM‐divinylbenzene graft terpolymer

Abstract

Abstract The graft crosslinking polymerization of 4‐ tert ‐butylstyrene (tBS) and divinylbenzene (DVB) onto ethylene–propylene–diene (EPDM) was carried out in toluene by using benzoyl peroxide (BPO) as an initiator. The synthesized graft terpolymer, tBS‐EPDM‐DVB (PBED), was extracted with tetrahydrofuran (THF) into gel (called as PBED I) and sol, and then they were identified by infrared (IR) spectroscopy. The effects of solvent amount, molar ratio of DVB to tBS, EPDM content, initiator concentration, reaction temperature, and reaction time on the graft crosslinking polymerization were examined. Among them, solvent amount and molar ratio of DVB to tBS were the important factors for this reaction system. Maximum oil absorbency of PBED I was 84.0 g/g but its oil‐absorption kinetic rate was very low. Sol PBED can be reused as oil absorbent (named as PBED II) through photocrosslinking by ultraviolet light irradiation. Although the oil absorbencies of PBED II were lower than those of PBED I in most cases, their oil absorption kinetic rates were higher than oil absorbencies of PBED I. The highest value of oil absorbency of PBED II was 56.0 g/g. The thermal stability of PBED I was studied by TGA. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 85: 2119–2129, 2002