Molecular dynamics simulation of C-C bond scission in polyethylene and linear alkanes: effects of the condensed phase

The reaction of C-C bond scission in polyethylene chains of various lengths was studied using molecular dynamics under the conditions of vacuum and condensed phase (polymer melt). A method of assigning meaningful rate constant values to condensed-phase bond scission reactions based on a kinetic mechanism accounting for dissociation, reverse recombination, and diffusional separation of fragments was developed. The developed method accounts for such condensed-phase phenomena as cage effects and diffusion of the decay products away from the reaction site. The results of C-C scission simulations indicate that per-bond rate constants decrease by an order of magnitude as the density of the system increases from vacuum to the normal density of a polyethylene melt. Additional calculations were performed to study the dependence of the rate constant on the length of the polymer chain under the conditions of the condensed phase. The calculations demonstrate that the rate constant is independent of the degree of polymerization if polyethylene samples of different lengths are kept at the same pressure. However, if instead molecular systems of different polyethylene chain lengths decompose under the conditions of the same density, shorter chains result in higher pressures and lower rate constants. The observed effect is attributed to a higher degree of molecular crowding (lower fraction of free intermolecular space available for molecular motion) in the case of shorter molecules.