Investigations of the Mechanism of Alternating Copolymerization with Charge-Transfer Interaction of the Monomers

The applicability of the method of Giese to the measurement of the influence of monomer reactivity is examined. The reaction of alkyl mercuric salts with sodium borohydride permits the production of alkyl (cyclohexyl and butyl) radicals. Since hydrogen radicals are present in high concentration, the addition of alkenes to the reaction mixture leads to radicals from the alkenes. Further addition of alkene (polymerization) can be nearly completely excluded in this way. The composition of the reaction products is determined by gas chromatography. The addition rate of the alkenes relative to styrene allows correlation with the e value of the Q-e scheme of Alfrey and Price. The method answers the question of how far addition of the monomer complex occurs in one step or as separate addition of both monomers during copolymerization in the presence of charge-transfer (CT) complexes of the monomers. The investigations are performed by using the styrene/acrylonitrile/ZnCl₂system, and it is demonstrated that the reactivity of the complexed