Tertiary aliphatic amines containing methyl substituents on the nitrogen atom such as N-methyl diethylamine

N-methyl di-n-propylamine

N

N-dimethyl n-propylamine

N-methyl di-n-butylamine

N

N-dimethyl n-butylamine and the other trialkyl amines such as triethylamine

tri-n-propylamine

tri-n-butylamine were coupled with persulfate as redox initiators in acry-lamide polymerization. The rate of polymerization and the over all-activation energies of polymerization were determined respectively. It was found that the tertiary aliphatic amines con-tining methyl substituents exhibited higher promorting activities in polymerization of acryla-mide than those of trialkyl amines with larger alkyl substituents. The results of spin trapping adn ESR spectroscopy study showed that the tertiary amines having methyl substituents were oxidized by persulfate to form the corresponding dialkylamion methyl free readicals nad they were reponsible for initiating of vinyl polymerization and became the amino end groups of the resulting polymers as confirmed by end group analysis.