Study of polymerization kinetics and copolymerization behavior of N-[3-(dimethylamino)propyl]methacryamide and cationic surfmers

Gas flotation is one of the important technologies for oily wastewater treatment and the surface-active polymer is an important kind of developing flotation agents. In this article, the flotation performance, polymerization kinetics, and copolymerization behavior of surface-active copolymer of N -[3-(dimethylamino) propyl] methacrylamide (DMAPMA) and dodecyl dimethyl propenyl ammonium chloride (C 12 DM) and copolymer of DMAPMA and decyl dimethyl vinylbenzyl ammonium chloride(C 10 MVBA) were investigated. The flotation experiment showed that both copolymers had an oil removal of 97% at the concentration of 30 mg/L. The result of polymerization kinetics showed that the polymerization initiation rate was influenced by the monomer concentration and the polymerization termination was dominated by bimolecular termination and accompanied by unimolecular termination. The activation energy of DMAPMA-C 12 DM copolymerization (89.64 kJ/mol) was smaller than that of DMAPMA-C 10 MVBA (91.65 kJ/mol) copolymerization. The reactivity ratios of DMAPMA and C 12 DM were 0.46 and 15.52, respectively, as well as the reactivity ratios of DMAPMA and C 10 MVBA were 1.19 and 35.77, respectively. These results are meaningful for the oily wastewater flotation and the copolymerization mechanism of DMAPMA-based copolymer.