Polymerization of 2-Oxazolines. IV. The Structure and the Reactivity of 2-Substituted-2-oxazolines and Oxazolinium Perchlorates

Abstract

In order to elucidate the structure and the stability of the growing cationic end in the polymerization of 2-oxazolines, the reactions of 2-bromoethylbenzamide with silver salts such as silver perchlorate, tetrafluoroborate, nitrate, nitrite, cyanate, and acetate were investigated. The reactions with silver perchlorate and tetrafluoroborate gave the 2-phenyl-2-oxazolinium salt (intramolecular O-alkylation product) quantitatively, whereas the reaction with silver nitrate gave the corresponding alkyl nitrate (staight-chain product). For the reactions with silver nitrite, cyanate and acetate, both products were obtained. In order to elucidate the ring-opening reactivity of the oxazolinium cation, the ring-opening addition reaction of N-methyl-2-oxazolinium perchlorates with pyridine was investigated. It was found that N-methyl-2-phenyl-2-oxazolinium perchlorate was more reactive toward the nucleophilic ring-opening reaction than was N-methyl-2-methyl-2-oxazolinium perchlorate. The mutual copolymerization of 2-phenyl-2-oxazoline with the other 2-substituted-2-oxazoline such as 2-methyl-, 2-isopropyl-, and 2-benzyl-2-oxazoline indicated that the monomer reactivity ratio r₂ was much larger than unity, whereas r₁ was very much smaller. Based on these results, the influence of the structure and the reactivity of the monomer and the growing cationic end of the polymerizability of 2-oxazolines are discussed.