Fig. 5: Key findings and predictions of the mechanism.
From: The molecular mechanism of constructive remodeling of a mechanically-loaded polymer
a The molar mass of the average chain relative to that of the starting material, Mn/Mno as a function of the mass fraction of remodeled material; ν is the number of backbone bonds formed per fracture. b The composition of the product chains at different polymer compositions. c The primary reactions responsible for repeated formation and fracture of branched chains in the mechanically loaded polymer. H-atom transfers are omitted. Chain fragmentation always yields two macroradicals; when they have the same microstructure, only one chain is shown for simplicity. d Reaction selectivities of aR• in polymers of different composition. Relatively slow diffusion in the solid allows additions (blue) to compete with barrierless recombinations with T•, A• or O2 (green and grey). The equivalent data for sR• and ROO• is plotted in Supplementary Fig. 28.
