Influence of the reaction mechanism on the time course of the entropy production during reversible polymerization

The paper shows the influence of the reaction mechanism on the time course of the entropy production sigma in a closed system during reversible polymerization. We consider two different reaction mechanisms with (a) being a polycondensation and (b) a chain growth mechanism. For both mechanisms explicit expressions for the entropy production sigma as a function of time t are derived. To demonstrate the application of these general expressions we consider two different polymerization experiments where the reaction starts (i) from monomer molecules polymerizing to a defined number average chain length x(n,eq) and (ii) from monodisperse polymer molecules reacting with each other under the constraint that x(n) is the same at the beginning and the end of the reaction. In both cases we treat the system to be ideal and describe the kinetics of the reversible polymerization reactions using two kinetic constants for the forward and backward reactions, respectively. Under these assumptions the difference in the curvature of the entropy production sigma between a polycondensation and a chain growth mechanism is only marginal if the reaction starts from monomer molecules polymerizing to a defined number average chain length x(n,eq).