Controlled cationic polymerization of methyl vinyl ether with a semi-continuous process

Abstract

A semi-continuous process for the controlled cationic polymerization of methyl vinyl ether (MVE) was developed. The initiating system was a combination of 1,1-diethoxyethane (DEE), trimethyl silyl iodide (TMSI), and ZnI2 as activator. The optimal reaction conditions were a reaction temperature of-5 °C in toluene, an initiator to activator ratio of 5 to 1, and a monomer feed rate of 0.86 mol/h. With these reaction conditions, poly(methyl vinyl ethers) (PMVEs) with molecular weights up to 7500 could be prepared in quantities up to 30 g with narrow molecular weight distributions (MWD<1.2) and still possessing active chain ends which can be end-capped with a nucleophilic terminator.