Poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) is predominantly characterized by alternating CH2 and CF2 units in a polymer backbone, originating from the head-to-tail addition of monomers or regular propagation. Due, to a small extent, to inverse monomer addition, so-called defect structures occur which influence the macroscopic properties of PVDF significantly. The amount of defect structures in the material is determined by the polymerization conditions. Here, the temperature dependence of the fraction of defect structures in PVDF obtained from polymerizations between 45 and 90 °C is reported. We utilized 19F-NMR spectroscopy to determine the fraction of defect structures as a function of temperature. To derive kinetic data, the polymerization of VDF is considered a quasi-copolymerization described by the Terminal Model involving four different propagation reactions. Based on the experimentally determined temperature-dependent fractions of defect structures, the known overall propagation rate coefficient, and taking into account the self-healing behavior of the macroradical, the Arrhenius parameters of the individual propagation rate coefficients were determined using the Monte Carlo methods.
Keywords: PVDF; defect structure; temperature dependence.