Anionic and Group Transfer Polymerizations of Olefins

Alkenes polymerize anionically by nucleophilic attack of a growing carbanion at the least hindered position of the double bond of the monomer. Therefore, the monomer must be electrophilic and capable of stabilizing the resulting negative charge. In addition, the double bond must be the most electrophilic functionality in the monomer. Some vinyl monomers which can polymerize anionically are listed in Eq. (8) in their 

III Molecular Engineering of Side Chain Liquid Crystalline Polymers 

The equilibria between these different species in anionic polymerizations of nonpolar alkenes are dynamic enough relative to the rate of propagation to generate monomodal and narrow molecular weight distributions [26, 27]. 

Although anionic polymerizations of nonpolar monomers such as styrene and budadiene are the most inherently living polymerizations available [5, 6], only one meso-genic styrene has been polymerized by an anionic mechanism [28]. As shown 

With the previous exception [28], only mesogenic methacrylates have been used in an attempt to prepare well-defined SCLCPs directly by an anionic addition mechanism. In this case, the most troublesome side reactions to avoid are intermolecular (Eq. 10), and intra- 

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