Date Thesis Awarded

5-2011

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Science (BS)

Department

Chemistry

Advisor

David E. Kranbuehl

Committee Members

David W. Thompson

Kim Whitley

John C. Poutsma

Abstract

It has previously been determined that different acids have different effects on molecular weight, and that methanol greatly increases degradation, while ethanol, though very similar in structure and properties, has no effect. This leads to the study that is the focus of this thesis. Our goal is to determine if the reason some acids or alcohols have different effects on the polymer is because of the extent of diffusion into the polymer matrix. The theory is that depending on molecular size, not all acids/alcohols will be absorbed to the same extent and therefore not have the same opportunity to react. We determine how differently sized molecules are absorbed into the polymer by aging polyamide-11 beads in various acid and alcohol solutions. The amount of liquid absorbed is measured using thermogravimetric analysis, and then it is possible to determine the relative composition of the liquid that was absorbed using the heats of vaporization measured with differential scanning calorimetry.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Comments

Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.

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