The anionic ring-opening polymerization of styrene oxide (SO) initiated from 3-phenyl-1-propanol was carried out in dry toluene at room temperature using phosphazene base (t-Bu-P4) as an organocatalyst. The product was identified to be poly(styrene oxide) (PSO) based on the results of the SEC, 1H NMR and MALDI-TOF MS measurements. To confirm that the polymerization system proceeded via a living mechanism, we carried out kinetic experiments. A first-order relationship between the reaction time and monomer conversion was observed in the kinetic plots, meaning that the monomer consumption rate was constant during the polymerization.  Furthermore, the molecular weights of the obtained PSO linearly increased with the reaction time. In conclusion, t-Bu-P4 can effectively catalyze the ring-opening polymerization of SO to produce PSO having predicted molecular weights and narrow polydispersities.

Living anionic ring-opening polymerization of styrene oxide catalyzed by phoshpazene base

241st National Meeting (2011)

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