An Examination of the Steric and Electronic Effects in the Copolymerization of Carbonyl Sulfide and Styrene Oxide

Abstract

The completely alternating copolymerization of carbonyl sulfide (COS) and styrene oxide was found to occur under mild reaction conditions (0–30 °C and 1.5 MPa) in the presence of (salen)CrCl/onium salt catalyst systems to afford high molecular weight poly(monothiocarbonates) with narrow molecular weight distributions. Ring-opening of styrene oxide was shown to be 88% selective at the methylene carbon. That is the reaction is driven by steric hindrance, where ring-opening occurs preferentially at the less congested carbon center. Similar results were found upon utilizing the tetramethyltetraazaannulene (tmtaa)CrCl/onium salt catalyst. On the other hand, upon employing a zinc–cobalt double metal cyanide (Zn–Co DMCC) catalyst, where the ligands around the active zinc site are not sterically encumbering, ring-opening of styrene oxide occurs predominantly at the methine carbon site; i.e., the reaction is electronically driven.