Temperature polyether polyol synthesis

Phosphazenium hydroxides or alcoholates are very active catalysts for PO and EO anionic polymerisation initiated by glycerol, DPG or other starters, at lower temperatures of around 80-100 °C, giving colourless polyether polyols with very low unsaturation (around 0.02 mequiv/g at higher MW 5000-6000 daltons), which represents a very good performance in the synthesis of polyether polyols for PU. 

The synthesis of rigid polyether polyols, by polymerisation of PO or EO, initiated by polyols which are liquid under the conditions of the polymerisation temperature, is simple, and similar to the synthesis of the prepolyether by propoxylation of glycerol (see Chapters 4.1.1 and 4.1.5). 

Common SS include polyethers, polyesters and polyalkyl glycols with glass transition temperatures in the range of -70°to -30°C. Commonly used macrodiols in the PUs synthesis are polyalkyl-diols, such as polyisobutylene diol [70], polybutadiene (PBU) [20, 71], or oligo-butadiene diols [72] as well as hydrogenated polybutadiene diol [20] polyether diols polytetrahydrofuran (PTHF or PTMO) [50-52], polyethylene glycol (PEG) or (PEO) [73], polypropyleneoxide (PPO) [73] or mixed blocks of them PEO-PPO-PEO [74] and PPO-THF [54] polyester diols poly(ethylene adipate) (PEA) [4,20], poly(butylene adipate) (PBA) [20, 73], and latterly polycaprolactone diol (PCL or PCD) [75], polyalkylcarbonate polyol [20] or mixed blocks of them, for example poly(carbonate-co-ester)diol [76], poly(hexamethylene-carbonate)diol [77], as well as poly(hexamethylene-carbonate-co-caprolactone)diol [78] and a mixed block copolymer of polyether and polyester blocks PCL-b-PTHF-b-PCL [79]. Examples schemes of macrodiols are shown in Eig. 1.9. 

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