Mechanism of polymerization of ring-compounds containing nitrogen

Abstract

The detailed mechanism of the polymerization of ring-compounds containing nitrogen, namely, 1-azabicyclo-(3,1,0)-hexane (ABH) conidine, quinuclidine and triethylene diamine has been investigated in the present work under the effect of quaternary ammonium salts, ammonium salts and the BF 3·conidine complex. It has been shown that the active sites for the polymerization of the monomers are ions and ion pairs; the activity of ion pairs is comparable with or greater than the activity of the free ions. The effect of the nature of the counter-ion, cation and the polarity of the medium on the reaction rate has been studied. It has been established that the polymerization rate depends on the nature of the counter-ion for polymerization by ion pairs and does not depend on the counter-ion for polymerization by free ions. The reaction rate increases in proportion to the size of the counter-ion for polymerization by ion pairs. The enthalpy changes have been measured for the ring compounds containing nitrogen and these have been correlated with the activation energies.