Grafting of polyacrylamide on to guar gum with the redox system potassium bromate/thiomalic acid

The kinetics of graft copolymerization of polyacrylamide on to a natural polysaccharide guar gum have been studied in aqueous medium at 35 ± 0.2°C. Chemical initiation, using a water‐soluble redox system, potassium bromate/thiomalic acid, was used. This redox pair works in the presence of oxygen and thus makes the whole system cost‐effective. A plausible mechanism of graft copolymerization has been suggested on the basis of the experimental results obtained by varying the parameters.