Reduction of reaction time of PMMA casted sheet by using heating oven

Abstract

Commercially, the cell-casting process of poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) sheets is carried out by using either a water bath or a hot-air heating oven as the source of heat. For a system that uses a water bath, temperature change is inflexible. In order to overcome this problem, replacement of the water bath with a new self-designed heating oven was considered. With the heating oven, the temperature profiling is adjustable. In this work, the casting of the PMMA sheet was carried out by using the self-designed heating oven. The extension of reaction was observed by determination of MMA conversion. Some of the mechanical properties of the final product were determined. Molecular weight average and molecular weight distribution (MWD) were determined using gel permeable chromatography (GPC). Then, all of the observed properties were compared to the commercial PMMA casted sheet, which is produced by using water bath. By using the non-isothermal temperature profile, the monomer conversion was increased to nearly 100 percent. The mechanical properties were shown to be near the values of commercial PMMA sheets. Determined molecular weight average values were very high and MWD were very broad because of the uncontrolled batch reaction in the cell casting process.