Reversibility, polycondensation

Hydrolysis and Polycondensation. One of the key properties of polyamides relates to the chemical equihbrium set up when the material is polymerized. The polymerization of nylon is a reversible process and the material can either hydrolyze or polymerize further, depending on the conditions. 

If polycondensation is carried out at low temperature, removal of the liberated water is impossible. In this case, reverse hydrolysis must be taken into account unless equilibrium is shifted towards esterification by an excess of one of the reactants. 

Polyesters have been obtained in organic medium by polyesterification of hydroxy acids,328,329 hydroxy esters,330 stoichiometric mixtures of diols and diacids,331-333 diols and diesters,334-339 and diols and cyclic anhydrides.340 Lipases have also been reported to catalyze ester-ester interchanges in solution or in die bulk at moderate temperature.341 Since lipases obviously catalyze the reverse reaction (i.e., hydrolysis or alcoholysis of polyester), lipase-catalyzed polyesterifications can be regarded as equilibrium polycondensations taking place in mild conditions (Scheme 2.35). 

The basic sol-gel reaction can be viewed as a two-step network-forming polymerization process. Initially a metal alkoxide (usually TEOS, Si(OCIl2CH )4) is hydrolyzed generating ethanol and several metal hydroxide species depending on the reaction conditions. These metal hydroxides then undergo a step-wise polycondensation forming a three-dimensional network in the process. The implication here is that the two reactions, hydrolysis and condensation, occur in succession this is not necessarily true (8.9). Depending on the type of catalyst and the experimental conditions used, these reactions typically occur simultaneously and in fact may show some reversibility. 

Generally, two common methods, the Stober method and the reverse microemulsion method are used for synthesis of silica nanoparticles. As derivatives of a sol-gel process, both methods involve hydrolysis of a silicon alkoxide precursor to form a hydroxysilicate followed by polycondensation of the hydroxysilicate to form a silica nanoparticle [44]. 

The reverse microemulsion method can be used to manipulate the size of silica nanoparticles [25]. It was found that the concentration of alkoxide (TEOS) slightly affects the size of silica nanoparticles. The majority of excess TEOS remained unhydrolyzed, and did not participate in the polycondensation. The amount of basic catalyst, ammonia, is an important factor for controlling the size of nanoparticles. When the concentration of ammonium hydroxide increased from 0.5 (wt%) to 2.0%, the size of silica nanoparticles decreased from 82 to 50 nm. Most importantly, in a reverse microemulsion, the formation of silica nanoparticles is limited by the size of micelles. The sizes of micelles are related to the water to surfactant molar ratio. Therefore, this ratio plays an important role for manipulation of the size of nanoparticles. In a Triton X-100/n-hexanol/cyclohexane/water microemulsion, the sizes of obtained silica nanoparticles increased from 69 to 178 nm, as the water to Triton X-100 molar ratio decreased from 15 to 5. The cosurfactant, n-hexanol, slightly influences the curvature of the radius of the water droplets in the micelles, and the molar ratio of the cosurfactant to surfactant faintly affects the size of nanoparticles as well. 

All reactions involved in polymer chain growth are equilibrium reactions and consequently, their reverse reactions lead to chain degradation. The equilibrium constants are rather small and thus, the low-molecular-weight by-products have to be removed efficiently to shift the reaction to the product side. In industrial reactors, the overall esterification, as well as the polycondensation rate, is controlled by mass transport. Limitations of the latter arise mainly from the low solubility of TPA in EG, the diffusion of EG and water in the molten polymer and the mass transfer at the phase boundary between molten polymer and the gas phase. The importance of diffusion for the overall reaction rate has been demonstrated in experiments with thin polymer films [10]. 

Esterification is the first step in PET synthesis but also occurs during melt-phase polycondensation, SSP, and extrusion processes due to the significant formation of carboxyl end groups by polymer degradation. As an equilibrium reaction, esterification is always accompanied by the reverse reaction being hydrolysis. In industrial esterification reactors, esterification and transesterification proceed simultaneously, and thus a complex reaction scheme with parallel and serial equilibrium reactions has to be considered. In addition, the esterification process involves three phases, i.e. solid TPA, a homogeneous liquid phase and the gas phase. The respective phase equilibria will be discussed below in Section 3.1. 

Transesterification is the main reaction of PET polycondensation in both the melt phase and the solid state. It is the dominant reaction in the second and subsequent stages of PET production, but also occurs to a significant extent during esterification. As mentioned above, polycondensation is an equilibrium reaction and the reverse reaction is glycolysis. The temperature-dependent equilibrium constant of transesterification has already been discussed in Section 2.1. The polycondensation process in the melt phase involves a gas phase and a homogeneous liquid phase, while the SSP process involves a gas phase and two solid phases. The respective phase equilibria, which have to be considered for process modelling, will be discussed below in Section 3.1. 

Challa, G., The formation of polyethylene terephthalate by ester interchange II. The kinetics of reversible melt polycondensation, Macromol. Chem., 38, 123-137 (1960). 

Stevenson, R. W. and Nettleton, H. R Polycondensation rate of polyethylene terephthalate). I. Polycondensation catalyzed by antimony trioxide in presence of reverse reaction, J. Polym. Sci., Part A-1, 6, p. 889-900 (1968). 

Step-growth condensation polymers, such as polyesters and polyamides, are formed by reversible reactions. In the case of PET, the commercial synthesis is essentially carried out by two reactions. The first is the formation of bishydroxyethyl terephthalate by esterification of a diacid with a glycol or by transesterification of a diester with a glycol. The second is the formation of the polymer by a polycondensation reaction. 

For the polymerization, either in the melt or solid phase, the reaction is driven to the polymer by removing ethylene glycol. The polymerization reaction is typically catalyzed by solutions consisting of antimony trioxide or germanium oxide. Both polycondensation catalysts also catalyze the reverse reaction, which is driven by an excess of ethylene glycol at melt conditions, generally above 255 °C. The polymerization reaction follows second-order kinetics with an activation energy of 22 000 cal/mol [6],... 

By using l,6-diiodo-r,6 -biferrocenylene (I-Fc-Fc-I) instead of I-Fc-I, the corresponding polymer (PAE-Fc5, Table 3) is given. Also attempted was the polycondensation with a reverse-type combination of monomer Ll -diethynyl-ferrocene (=Fc=) and dihalo aromatic compound (X-Ar-X). This proved to... 

Recently, the synthesis of nano-sized HA has been proposed via reverse-micro-emulsion preparation, which is reported to be effective for controlling the hydrolysis and polycondensation of the alkoxides of the constituents. Using this preparation route, the nanoparticles crystallize directly to the desired phase at the relatively low temperature of 1050 °C and maintain surface areas higher than 100 m g after calcination at 1300 °C for 2h [107-109]. 

As pointed out in Section 11,1, polycondensation of sugars in aqueous acid is a reversible process made inefficient by the presence of water. Polycondensation can be conducted more efficiently in anhydrous solvents, with the removal of the evolved water. Alternatively, it may be carried out by using derivatives which possess at C-l nonhydroxylic substituents that, on displacement, may be conveniently removed from the reaction system. These methods will be discussed in turn. 

Polycondensation of diols with dicarboxylic acids or reesterification of dicarboxylic acid esters with diols are the main methods of preparing polyesters. Because of the reversibility of this classical polyester formation, high reaction temperatures, long polycondensation times and low pressures are required to remove low molecular weight reaction products in order to shift the equilibrium to the direction of polyester formation and to obtain sufficiently high molecular weights. 

Many reactions familiar to organic chemists may be utilized to carry out step polymerizations. Some examples are given in Table 2.2 for polycondensation and in Table 2.3 for polyaddition reactions. These reactions can proceed reversibly or irreversibly. Those involving carbonyls are the most commonly employed for the synthesis of a large number of commercial linear polymers. Chemistries used for polymer network synthesis will be presented in a different way, based on the type of polymer formed (Tables 2.2 and 2.3). Several different conditions may be chosen for the polymerization in solution, in a dispersed phase, or in bulk. For thermosetting polymers the last is generally preferred. 

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