Polycondensation Kinetics: 1. Bifunctional Organosilicon Monomers

Polycondensation of bifunctional organosilicon monomers as a chain unbranched process includes initiation (hydrolysis of nonreactive end groups), propagation (sequential addition of monomers and bimolecular aggregation of n -mers), and termination (cyclization and entanglement of end groups in a nonreactive environment). Kinetic models of these steps with a minimum number of rate constants have been proposed. It has been shown that the chain propagation pathways involving different end groups are mixed and the competition of the chain growth and termination processes determines the molecular mass distribution of oligomers and their fractal packing in nanoscale aggregates.