The kinetics of oxidative coupling of 2,6-dimethylphenol with a copper-diamine catalyst system

Reaction rate measurements show that a Michaelis-Menten model proposed earlier is inadequate to describe the full course of the polymerization of 2,6-dimethylphenol to poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide). Modification of this model to include the effects of catalyst deactivation during the reaction and difference in reactivity between the monomer and other oligomers resulted in much greater accuracy. The kinetic constants in the modified model were influenced by reaction temperature, system composition, and method of catalyst component addition.