Self-polymerization and co-polymerization kinetics of gadolinium methacrylate

Gadolinium methacrylate（Gd（MAA）3） was synthesized by using gadolinium oxide and methacrylic acid as the starting materials and its self-polymerization kinetic was studied based on non-isothermal and isothermal analysis. Moreover, the monomer reactivity ratios of methyl methacrylate（MMA） and Gd（MAA）3 were evaluated by using Kelen-Tiidos method. The thermal neutron shielding properties of PMMA and poly（MMA-co-Gd（MAA）3） were calculated by MCNP program. The results show that the selfpolymerization of Gd（MAA）3 can be initiated by thermal and free radical and its activation energy is103.35 kJ/mol or 58.55 kJ/mol correspondingly in the solid state or aqueous solution. The polymerization rate,Rp,under low conversion at 65 ℃ is expressed as Rp = K[M]^（1.05）[I]^（0.60）. The reactivity ratios of r1（MMA） and r2（Gd（MAA）3） are 0.225 and 1.340, respectively. The ability of thermal neutron shielding of poly（MMA-co-Gd（MAA）3） is increased by gadolinium contents and is far better than PMMA.