Coordinative polymerization of p-substituted phenyl glycidyl ethers .2. Effect of electron-withdrawing groups

As a complementary study of a previous work about the influence of the electronic effects of p-substituted phenyl glycidyl ethers on the polymerization behaviour, a new series of monomers with electron-withdrawing groups was prepared, i.e., highly reactive p-functionalized poly(phenyl glycidyl ethers) were prepared. The polymerizations were carried out with four different aluminium-based coordinative initiators, (C2H5)(3)Al/H2O (mole ratio 1:0.6) (the Vandenberg catalyst), (C2H5)(3)Al/CH3COCH2COCH3/H2O (mole ratio 1:1:0.5) (the Vandenberg chelate catalyst), [(CH3)(2)CHO](2)Al-O-Zn-O-Al[OCH(CH3)(2)](2) (the Teyssie catalyst) and [(CH3)(2)CHO](3)Al/ZnCl2 (the Price catalyst), all with different Lewis acid character. The influence of the electron withdrawing groups on the characteristics and conversion of polymers was studied. All polymers were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy showing higher tacticities when the Price catalysts was used. In some cases the degree of conversion was low due to passivation effects which were studied in several experiments.