Epoxide homopolymerization activity

Note that the activation of the anhydride causes deactivation of the amine. This helps to explain the actual suppression of epoxide homopolymerization by the anhydride-amine combination. 

We have attempted to account for these observations by proposing the following simplified reaction path (Figure 6). Protonation of the epoxide is followed by the rearrangement of the protonated species to a covalent intermediate or a solvent stabilized ion pair. Homopolymerization then proceeds through the ion-pair intermediate, but the covalent Intermediate leads to catalyst transformation and, in most cases, loss of catalytic activity. 

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