Thermal stability of maleimide modified methacrylate polymers

The thermal stability of seven kinds of methacrylate homo-polymers and their methacrylate-maleimide copolymers was studied, by DTA-TG analysis. The result show that maleimide can improve the thermal stability of methacrylate polymers and among the maleimide modified methacrylate polymers, 1,1,1-trimethylolpropane (or pentaerythritol tetramethacrylate)-N,N′(methylenedi-p-phenylene) dimaleimide copolymer (I) exhibits better resistance to high temperature. For example, in N2, the mass-less temperature of copolymer (I) (with 9% maleimide) with the mass-loss of 10%, 20% is 404°C, 424°C respectively. In addition, the mechanical properties of copolymer (I) were studied.