Optimization of amine-terminated polyacrylonitrile synthesis and characterization

Amine-terminated PANs were prepared in two steps. The first step includes free radical polymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) using initiator pair of ammonium persulfate and sodium thiosulfate as redox system. In the second step, the amino groups were introduced through the reaction of polyacrylonitrile with excess of different diamines (10-fold) including ethylenediamine (EDA), hexamethylenediamine (HMDA) and octamethylenediamine (OMDA), to yield PAN–EDA, PAN–HMDA and PAN–OMDA, respectively. Optimization of the amine-terminated PANs synthesis was carried out at different temperatures (30–90 °C) and different time intervals (4–24 h). In addition, the introduction of the amino group was followed by the piperidine test and recording of the FT-IR spectra. All polymers were characterized by, 1H NMR spectra, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and FT-IR spectra.