We investigated the use of naturally occurring, renewable compounds as comonomers in the copolymerization with ethylene. The applied comonomers were: linalool (L ), linalool oxide (LO ),  and eugenol (Eu ). We applied a palladium(II) aryl sulfonate phosphine complex as polymerization catalyst. In each copolymerization product was obtained, however, at comonomer specific activities. The copolymerizations with L and LO resulted in low activities. The ethylene copolymerizations with Eu were by far the most active. While only less than 1 mol % of L and LO could be incorporated at reasonable activities, Eu could be relatively easily copolymerized at high activities (up to ca. 3.5 mol % offering 14.6 mol/L Eu  in the feed). The copolymers were characterized by 1H and 13C NMR spectroscopy, DSC and GPC.

Renewable comonomers for the production of ethylene copolymers

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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