Mechanism of Donor-Acceptor Alternating Copolymerization

The alternating copolymerization of butadiene and an acrylic compound in the presence of ethyl aluminum dichloride and vanadium oxychloride as complexing agents was studied kinetically for the comparison of two mechanisms, i. e., one involving an intermediate of a ternary complex of butadieneacrylic monomer-EtAIClz and the other without the complex formation. The rate of propagation was found to attain a maximum at a definite monomer composition, and this composition is not varied by changing the amount of EtAICl₂ but decreased with increasing the concentration of total monomer. This fact is explained only by the mechanism of the ternary complex intermediate. In relation to the mechanism, NMR study of the ternary complex, ESR study of the growing radical NMR study of the regularity of the copolymer, and the elementary reaction of the propagation are reviewed with discuss ion.