# A general theory of kinetics and thermodynamics of steady-state copolymerization Source: [A general theory of kinetics and thermodynamics of steady-state copolymerization]() Collection index: [llms.txt]() Data updated: 2025-10-24T20:53:51.966Z Authors: Yao-Gen Shu, Yong-Shun Song, Zhong-Cun Ou-Yang, Ming Li Published: 2014-12-19T07:17:41.000Z ## Abstract Kinetics of steady-state copolymerization has been investigated since 1940s. Irreversible terminal and penultimate models were successfully applied to a number of comonomer systems, but failed for systems where depropagation is significant. Although a general mathematical treatment of the terminal model with depropagation was established in 1980s, penultimate model and higher-order terminal models with depropagation have not been systematically studied, since depropagation leads to hierarchically-coupled and unclosed kinetic equations which are hard to be solved analytically. In this work, we propose a truncation method to solve the steady-state kinetic equations of any-order terminal models with depropagation in an unified way, by reducing them into closed steady-state equations which give the exact solution of the original kinetic equations. Based on the steady-state equations, we also derive a general thermodynamic equality in which the Shannon entropy of the copolymer sequence is explicitly introduced as part of the free energy dissipation of the whole copolymerization system. ## Recorded benchmark results A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage. ## Original sources and implementation [Original paper]() [PDF]()