A novel silane coupling agent with peroxy groups used as an initiator in the graft polymerization of AN or MMA on nano-TiO2

A novel peroxy group-containing silane coupling agent was synthesized and anchored on the surface of titanium dioxide nanoparticles (nano-TiO 2 ) to form an immobilized-initiator-modified nano-TiO 2 species. In this study, the kinetic parameters of the peroxy group-containing silane were tested and assessed using DSC. The pre-exponential factor ( A d ) was 8.973 × 10 8 and the activation energy ( E a ) was 80.736 kJ mol −1 . Moreover, the empirical Arrhenius equation was determined to be ln  K d  = − 80.736/ RT  + ln(8.973 × 10 8 ). To obtain continuous polymers, acrylonitrile (AN) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) were polymerized using the novel peroxy group-containing silane and FeSO 4 as an initiator system. The number average molecular weights ( M n of PAN = 3×10 4 and M n of PMMA = 1.4 × 10 5 ) and polydispersity indexes (PDI of PAN = 2.76 and PDI of PMMA = 1.65) were determined by GPC. It was suggested that the redox initiation system can generate highly reactive species on the surfaces of inorganic nanoparticles. The nano-TiO 2 -grafted polymers were successfully obtained.