Process for preparing vulcanizable acrylic elastomers

Claim 1

Process for the preparation of vulcanizable acrylic elastomers by polymerization, at 40°-80° C. and in the presence of a radical-yielding initiator, of a mixture of monomers consisting prevailingly of an alkyl acrylate in which the alkyl has from 1 to 8 carbon atoms, characterized in that the mixture of monomers subjected to polymerization contains, besides the alkyl acrylate, the following comonomers: (a) 0.5-2% by weight of an ethylenically unsaturated monomer containing halogen and having one of the following general formulae: R--COOR 1 ; R 1 --COOR 2 ; or R 2 --O--R 1 wherein R is chloro- or bromoalkyl C 1-3 ; R 1 is alkenyl C 2-3 ; and R 2 is chloro- or bromoalkyl C 1-4 ; (b) 0.5-2% by weight of an ethylenically unsaturated monomer containing an epoxy group and selected from the group consisting of vinyl glycidyl ether, allyl glycidyl ether, methallyl glycidyl ether, glycidyl acrylate and glycidyl methacrylate; (c) 0.1-1% by weight of at least one ethylenically unsaturated carboxylic acid selected from the group consisting of acrylic acid, methacrylic acid, itaconic acid, maleic acid and fumaric acid; and (d) 0-0.1% by weight of a polyene having at least two non-conjugated double bonds; all of the above percentages being referred to the total of the mixture of the monomers.