Preparation of telechelic oligomers by controlled thermal degradation of isotactic poly(1-butene) and poly(propylene- ran-1-butene)

Abstract

It was found that telechelic isotactic oligo(1-butene) and telechelic oligo(propylene- ran-1-butene) could be isolated as nonvolatile oligomers from polymer residues resulting from the thermal degradation of isotactic poly(1-butene) and poly(propylene- ran-1-butene), respectively. Their structures were determined by 1H and 13C NMR with attention being paid to their reactive end groups. The maximum average number of terminal vinylidene groups per molecule ( f TVD) was 1.8, indicating that about 80 mol% were α,ω-diene oligomers having two terminal vinylidene groups. This useful new telechelic oligomer had a lower polydispersity than the original polymer, in spite of its lower molecular weight and T m. The composition of end groups of nonvolatile oligomers obtained by thermal degradation of poly(propylene- ran-1-butene) could be explained by the differences in bond dissociation energy and activation energy of elementary reactions during thermal degradation, based on the monomer composition of the original polymer.