Comparative study of thermal degradation of n-vinylimidazole/phenoxy- and methoxyethylmethacrylate copolymers

Copolymerization reactions involving N-vinylimidazole and its derivatives have stimulated great interest due to the wide possibilities of the preparation of new materials, including the synthetic analogues of biopolymers with imidazole fragments. The role of the imidazole group in polymers is very important, especially due to the high thermal stability at elevated temperatures when it is copolymerized with methacrylates, which contain highly electronegative atoms like oxygen [10,11]. Accordingly, copolymers of N-vinylimidazole with phenoxy- and methoxyethylmethacrylate have been prepared and subjected to thermogravimetric analysis to discover their thermal stability. Copolymers are also characterized by FTIR and ¹H-NMR spectroscopic methods. Results show that the thermal stability is greater for N-vinylimidazole-co-phenoxyethylmethacrylate than for those with N-vinylimidazole-methoxyethylmethacrylate.