Reaction Kinetics in Anionic Copolymerization： A Revisit on Mayo-Lewis Equation

Reactivity ratio is a traditional parameter quantifying the reaction kinetics in copolymerization, which is important for potentially controlling microstructures of polymers and guiding the copolymerization process. Our recent experiments using tube-NMR technique enable us to in situ monitor the concentration profiles of the co-monomers during the anionic copolymerization process. This motivates us to revisit the Mayo-Lewis （ML） equation, which is the basis for derivation of reactivity ratio and has been extensively utilized in addition copolymerization. We found that although an explicit ML expression is desirable for ease of calculation and correlation with experimental data, it fails in our anionic copolymerization experiment as well as some data available in the literature. The origin is ascribed to the validity of the steady state assumption which is essential in the ML equation. This assumption can be released in anionic copolymerization and replaced by the fact that the overall concentration of the living chain ends keeps constant throughout the copolymerization. Alternative numerical method has been utilized to obtain the rate constants and consequently the reactivity ratios. Our work suggests that the ML equation should be applied with caution.

HELIX SENSE-SELECTIVE COPOLYMERIZATION OF TRIPHENYLMETHYL METHACRYLATE WITH CHIRAL ANIONIC INITIATORS

Optically active copolymers of pairs of three monomers, triphenyl (methyl methacrylate)and one or two pyridyl substituted methyl methacrylate homologues, were obtained by helix-sense-selective copolymerization using complexes of organolithium with chiral ligand as anionicinitiators in toluene at low temperature. The copolymers obtained with (-)-sparteine (Sp) and(S,S)-(+)-and (R, R)-(-)-2, 3-dimethoxy-1, 4-bis (dimethylamino) butanes((+)-and (-)-DDB) complexes of organolithium showed low optical activity, but PMP complex with N, N-diphenylethyleneamine monolithium amide (PMP-DPEDA-Li) was effective in synthesizingcopolymers of high optical rotation ([α]_D^(25) about+320～1370°)which were comparable to thoseof relative homopolymers with one-handed helical structure.

COPOLYMERIZATION PROCESS OF TRIPHENYLMETHYL METHACRYLATE AND MMA WITH CHIRAL ANIONIC COMPLEX INITIATOR

The copolymerization process of triphenylmethyl methacrylate (TrMA) and methylmethacrylate (MMA) using chiral anionic complex initiator (-) SP-FlLi (Scheme 1) has beenstudied in toluene and THF, respectively. The copolymer obtained in toluene possessed muchhigher specific rotation than that in THF. These copolymers have shown a tendency to a random and a like alternating structure, respectively.

Synthesis of α-Bromine-Terminated Polystyrene Macroinitiator and Its Initiation of MMA Polymerization by ATRP

In the present paper the synthesis of block copolymers via the transformation from living anionic polymerization (LAP) to atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) was described. α-Bromine-terminated polystyrenes(PStBr) in the LAP step was prepared by using n-BuLi as initiator, tetrahydrofuran (THF) as the activator, α-methylstyrene (α-MeSt) as the capping group and liquid bromine (Br_2) as the bromating agent. The effects of reaction conditions such as the amounts of α-MeSt, THF, and Br_2 as well as molecular weight of polystyrene on the bromating efficiency (BE) and coupling extent (CE) were examined. The present results show that the yield of PStBr obtained was more than 93. 8% and the coupling reaction was substantially absent. PStBr was further used as the macroinitiator in the polymerization of methyl-methacrylate (MMA) in the presence of copper (I ) halogen and 2, 2' -bipyridine (bpy) complexes. It was found that the molecular weight of the resulted PSt-b-PMMA increased linearly with the increase of the conversion of MMA and the polydispersity was 1. 2-1.6. The structures of PStBr and P(St-b-MMA) were characterized by ~1H NMR spectra.