Step polymerisation examples

Ring-opening reactions may also be used in order to make polymers by the step polymerisation mechanism. One commercially important example of this is the manufacture of nylon 6, which uses caprolactam as the starting material and proceeds via the ring-opening reaction shown in Reaction 2.15. 

Step polymerisations tend to be carried out using two different bifunctional molecules so that these give rise to molecules which are essentially copolymers. For example, nylon 6,6 is prepared from hexamethylenediamine and adipic acid it thus consists of alternating residues along the polymer chain and may be thought of as an alternating copolymer. 

Polymers are formed via two general mechanisms, namely chain or step polymerisation, originally called addition and condensation, respectively, although some polymerisations can yield polymers by both routes (see Chapter 2). For example, ring opening of cyclic compounds (e.g., cyclic lactides and lactams, cyclic siloxanes) yield polymers either with added catalyst (chain) or by hydrolysis followed by condensation (step). Many polymers are made via vinyl polymerisation, e.g., PE, PP, PVC, poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA). It could be argued that the ethylenic double bond is a strained cyclic system. 

The growing commercial use of polymer colloids whose preparation involves step polymerisations, hybrid systems and/or new routes to dispersion of polymers has not yet spawned an equivalent level of activity in academic studies. The success of the Avecia ex Zeneca Resins) technology for preparation of polyurethane dispersions is a good example of the importance of such developments. There also is the attraction of using conventional solvent-borne coating vehicles e.g., alkyd resins) in aqueous media and hybrid systems... 

Some examples of step polymerisation from small reagents and from prepolymers... 

The initial step of the polymerisation process is reaction of the amine groups with formaldehyde to generate methylol units, as illustrated in Reaction 1.9. Further heating of the polymer then leads to a variety of reactions. For example, the methylol groups can undergo self-condensation (Reaction 1.10). 

The impact which was made by the writer s revival of the old ester mechanism in the context of polymerisations is attested by the number of polymer chemists who set about examining the validity of the theory experimentally. For example, Bywater in Canada confirmed that during the progress of a polymerisation of styrene by perchloric acid the acid could not be distilled out of the reaction mixture, but after exhaustion of the monomer it could be. This regeneration of the initiating acid after the consumption of the monomer is an often attested characteristic of pseudocationic polymerisations with many different protonic acids it is most simply explained by the decomposition of the ester to an alkene and the acid, i.e., a reversal of the initiation, when the monomer has been consumed. Enikolopian in the USSR found that the effect of pressure on the rate of polymerisation in the same system was not compatible with the propagation step involving an ion, and... 

The well-known addition of tert-butyl chloride to ethylene by means of A1C13 without skeletal rearrangement is simply another example of the initiation step of a /-cat polymerisation, involving the insertion of the alkene into an ester, namely the C-Cl bond, which is activated by the A1C13, via a six-centred transition state (I), as shown in equation (ii) ... 

Copolymerisation is a polymerisation reaction in which a mixture of more than one monomeric species is allowed to polymerise and form a copolymer. The copolymer can be made not only by chain growth polymerisation but by step growth polymerisation also. It contains multiple units of each monomer used in the same polymeric chain. For example, a mixture of 1, 3 - butadiene and styrene can form a copolymer. 

Organometallic compounds are used widely as homogeneous catalysts in the chemical industry. For example, if the alkene insertion reaction continues with further alkene inserting into the M C bond, it can form the basis for catalytic alkene polymerisation. Other catalytic cycles may include oxidative addition and reductive elimination steps. Figure above shows the steps involved in the Monsanto acetic acid process, which performs the conversion... 

The synthesis of some coronands and cryptands involve several synthetic steps and, sometimes, high dilution techniques to avoid unwanted polymerisation, which considerably adds to the cost of the synthesis. In some instances, it is possible to simplify the synthetic procedure by using a templating agent, that is, a metal ion which pre-organizes the reactants in such a way that they do not polymerise and have the right orientation to yield the desired compound. One of the first examples of such template reaction in lanthanide macrocyclic chemistry was demonstrated by Wanda Radecka-Paryzek who isolated via a one-pot pro-... 

---