Syntheses of cyclic polycarbonates by the direct phosgenation of bisphenol M

Bisphenol M was subjected to interfacial polycondensations in an NaOH/CH₂Cl₂ system with triethylamine as a catalyst. Regardless of the catalyst concentration, similar molecular weights were obtained, and matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectra exclusively displayed mass peaks of cycles (detectable up to 15,000 Da). With triethyl benzyl ammonium chloride as a catalyst, linear chains became the main products, but the contents of the cycles and the molecular weights strongly increased with higher catalyst/bisphenol ratios. When the pseudo‐high‐dilution method was applied, both diphosgene and triphosgene yielded cyclic polycarbonates of low or moderate molecular weights. Size exclusion chromatography measurements, evaluated with the triple‐detection method, yielded bimodal mass distribution curves with polydispersities of 5–12. Furthermore, a Mark–Houwink equation was elaborated, and it indicated that the hydrodynamic volume of poly(bisphenol M carbonate) was quite similar to that of poly(bisphenol A carbonate)s with similar concentrations of cyclic species. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 1248–1254, 2005