Does ethylene gas collapse on polymerization to polyethylene?

Abstract:

In this paper, we consider the question whether ethylene gas on polymerizing to linear polyethylene (PE) collapses from a coil-like state to a globular state on completion of the reaction. Our calculations seem to indicate that this is the case. In an attempt to explain this phenomenon, we define a statistic called the average atmosphere of a self-avoiding walk (SAW). We further demonstrate by means of exact enumeration that the expectation of this average and its variance differ for SAW with uniform probability distribution and growing SAW. For growing PE, we use the distribution used for growing self-avoiding walks with attraction between atoms being accounted for by means of an empirical potential energy function.

Keywords::

• coil
• globular
• average atmosphere
• self-avoiding walk
• repulsion
• attraction

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.