Copolymerizations of tetraethyl vinylidene phosphonate. Bisphosphonate units in the main polymer chain. II

This is the second part of the article with a subtitle “… The First Synthesis” published by us previously. For this, second part, we have chosen copolymers with low proportion of (‐b‐) units, as well as random copolymers with substantial proportions of (‐b‐) units. This is in contrast to the part I, in which we mostly described alternating copolymerization. In this article, radical copolymerization of tetraethyl vinylidene phosphonate (B) with several vinyl/ethylenic monomers (M₂), namely acrylamide, methacrylamide, methyl methacrylate, n‐butyl acrylate, n‐butyl methacrylate, and styrene has been described and reactivity ratios of monomers as well as the average length of the comonomer blocks (n) have been determined (r₁ = 0). It has been found, that (as it should be) there is a proportionality between r₂ (=k_m2M2/k_m2B) and n. Moreover, there is a proportionality between r₂ (or n) and the comonomer (M₂) “reactivity,” defined as the rate constant of M₂ addition to the styrene radical. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2014 , 52, 1614–1621