Cationic copolymerization of 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane with styrene and 1,3-dioxolane

Copolymerization of 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane with styrene and 1,3-dioxolane was carried out in methylene chloride at 0°C with triethyloxonium tetrafluoroborate as an initiator. Random copolymers were obtained from both of these monomer pairs, but attempted copolymerization of 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane with 3,3-bis(chloromethyl)oxetane under similar conditions resulted in the homopolymer of the latter monomer. There were three structural units of 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane in these copolymers as in its homopolymer: the “ester” unit, which was formed by vinyl addition with hydride shift followed by ring-opening rearrangement, the “vinyl” unit produced by ring-opening reaction, and the unit with a pendant 1,3-dioxane ring formed by simple vinyl addition. The fractions of the ester and vinyl units to the total 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane units in the copolymer of 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane with styrene decreased with decreasing 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane content. On the contrary, the fraction of the vinyl unit in the copolymer of 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane with 1,3-dioxolane increased slightly with decreasing 2-vinyl-1,3-dioxane content, while that of the ester unit decreased. The reactivities of the propagating species are discussed on the basis of these results.