Living cationic polymerization of olefins. How did the discovery come about?
✍ Scribed by Joseph P. Kennedy
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 170 KB
- Volume
- 37
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0887-624X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The tortuous road to living carbocationic polymerizations is chronicled. The impetus for this project was my conviction that, just as living anionic polymerizations have started with a critical insight, a similar breakthrough will also be possible with cations. Upon retrospect, the facts show a three-step progression to the objective: Discovery of 1) controlled initiation, 2) reversible termination (quasiliving systems), and 3) controlled chain transfer. But what good is the discovery of a process without demonstrating its usefulness in terms of desirable products? Thus, a section concerns unique microarchitectures obtainable only by this technique: functional liquids, telechelics, thermoplastic elastomers, etc. The marketing of some of these products has already started, and the fundamental exploration of the promises of this technique is in progress worldwide.