Are there covalent active species in the polymerization of styrene initiated by trifluoromethanesulfonic acid?

Abstract

AbstractPolymerization of styrene by perchloric and trifluoromethanesulfonic acids has been assumed previously to proceed via a pseudo‐cationic mechanism. We found that for the latter system the trifluoromethanesulfonate ester is not stable. Attempts to observe the model 1‐phenylethylester were unsuccessful even at −78°C. In the reaction between 1‐phenylethyl bromide and AgSO3CF3 a very rapid alkylation of the aromatic rings occurs. In the reaction between 1‐phenylethanol and (CF3SO2)2O a very rapid reaction between the intermediate ester (or ion) and the alcohol leads to the formation of the corresponding ether. A reaction carried out with the optically active alcohol indicates that no more than 4% of the intermediate species might have reacted with the alcohol as ester before racemization (i.e. ionization). The macromolecular ester does not seem to be much more stable and in 19F NMR spectra only the acid was observed. An attempt at the formation of a block copolymer with N‐tert‐butylaziridine give zero or very low yield, contrarily to results previously observed with perchloric acid. An analysis of some former results on polymerization kinetics and of the new data given in this paper show no real evidence in favor of the pseudo‐cationic polymerization of styrene in CH2Cl2, initiated by CF3SO3H. The various data may be explained more satisfactorily by a more classical ionic mechanism. Triflic acid can reversibly protonate olefins due to the affinity of the triflate anion being higher for a proton than for a secondary or tertiary carbon atom; this is sufficient to explain the extremely low concentration of ionic species.