Photochemical Oxidation of Polyolefins and Prediction of Their Useful Lifetime

By analysing the experimental data for individual elementary steps in the photochemical oxidation of pure polyolefins and by considering the kinetics of the process as a whole, it is shown that the latter is a chain reaction with degenerate photobranching by hydroperoxides and carbonyl compounds and quadratic chain termination. The available data are sufficient to describe the process at a quantitative level under any conditions. The use of this reaction as a model made it possible to elucidate the characteristic features of the photochemical oxidation of thermally stabilised and oriented polyolefins.
The bibliography includes 68 references.