This forces additional condensation and crosslinking, but should also displace the residual butyl alcohol. Conclusion Polymer thermal stability can be predicted based on calculated bond dissociation energies, relying on the fact that bond dissociation will determine the onset of thermal degradation, and that the weakest link in the chain limits the thermal stability of the entire molecule. A combined Molecular Orbital-Molecular Orbital method has been developed, using BLYP Density Functional calculations as the high level MO Theory for accuracy, and using AM1 semiempirical calculations as the lower level MO Theory, in order to model polymers with realistic model compounds. A set of correction factors was developed, relating AM1 to BLYP calculations. With BDE's calculated in this way, initial fragmentation patterns, relative polymer stabilities, and polymer thermal decomposition temperatures can be calculated that are consistent with experiment.
Viscous polybutenes are inherently less stable than polypropylene.
The initial stages of the High Temperature Corrosion mechanism have been identified, and a counter intuitive solution to HTC has been found. The author also gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Oxford Molecular Group, Inc., and the Center for Computational Science and Technology at Argonne National Laboratories, for providing access to DGauss on a Cray supercomputer. 10 Irikura, K.K. J. Phys. 11 Crawford, J.W. J. Soc.