Kinetics of Hill-Hermans diffusion of an unstable reagent
This work deals with a generalization of the widely applicable theory of Hill's, later developed by Hermans. It concerns the diffusion-controlled reaction of a reagent with a polymer across an interface, in the course of which the reagent is captured by an infinitely reactive site ('sink') inside the polymer. For certain applications, it becomes necessary to introduce an alternative fate which the reagent may suffer during diffusion to the sink, namely, deactivation or decomposition. The present kinetic theory of this effect is based on the method of considering the elementary jumps responsible for diffusion, while Hill and Hermans used the complementary, continuous method based on Fick's law. The present derivation of a general rate law for the conversion of the polymer is based on a pseudo lattice model. The rate law takes the form of an infinite spectrum of first-order decay terms, and is little dependent on details of the model used or on curvature of the interface. It does depend critically on a stability constant s of the reagent, which is unity for a perfectly stable and zero for a completely unstable one. In the former case the rate law reduces substantially to that of Hill and Hermans, but covers the initial transient effect as well as the steady state. As s →0, the rate law converges uniformly to that of a first-order chemisorption of a monolayer over the appropriate range. Intermediate cases (0 < s < 1) are of interest in the chemistry of rubber latex, and probably in other fields of polymer chemistry.