Abstract
The polymerization of ethyl cyanoacrylate fumes from surface bound initiators is an important step in
many novel and mature technologies. Understanding the effect of temperature on the rate of poly(ethyl
cyanoacrylate) (PECA) growth and its molecular weight during its polymerization from the vapor phase
from surface bound initiators provides insight into the important mechanistic aspects that impact the
polymerizations’ success. In these studies, it is shown that the amount of PECA formed during the polymerization
of ECA from a latent fingerprint increases with decreasing temperature, while the polymer
molecular weight varies little. This is interpreted to be the result of the loosening of the ion pair that initiates
the polymer chain growth and resides on the end of the growing polymer chain with decreasing
temperature. Comparison of temperature effects and counter-ion studies show that in both cases loosening
the ion pair results in the formation of more polymer with similar molecular weight, verifying this
interpretation. These results further suggest that lowering the temperature may be an effective method
to optimize anionic vapor phase polymerizations, including the improvement of the quality of aged latent
prints and preliminary results are presented that substantiate this prediction.
