James H. Wang, V. Percec
1991
Citations
0
Influential Citations
12
Citations
Journal
Polymer Bulletin
Abstract
SummaryThis paper describes the phase transfer catalyzed (PTC) polymerization of 4-bromo-2,6-dimethylphenol (1) in the presence 2,4,6-tri-tert-butylphenol (2) or 4-bromo-2,6-di-tert-butylphenol (4). The polymerization of 1 in the presence of 2 at a 1/2 molar ratio of 3/1 led to poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) with $$\overline {\text{M}}$$ n of 13400 g/mol at a yield of 85%. In contrast, the polymerization of 1 in the presence of 4 at 1/4 molar ratios of 5/1 and 10/1 did not produce any methanol insoluble PPO fraction when 4 was added at the beginning of the polymerization. However, PPO with $$\overline {\text{M}}$$ n + 1600 to 2400 g/mol were obtained when 4 was added to the polymerization system after 0.5 h and respectively 2.0 h after the homopolymerization of 1 was started. A radical-anion mechanism is proposed to account for these polymerization results.