Living carbocationic polymerization

Laboratory scale glass equipment was designed, assembled, and used for the continuous preparation by living cationic polymerization oftert-Cl monotelechelic polyisobutylene (PIB-Clt). The process involves the continuous feeding of controlled amounts of isobutylene (IB), a stream of premixed initiator (2-chloro-2, 4, 4-trimethylpentane, TMPCl) and electron donor (triethylamine, TEA) in methylene chloride/hexane, and a stream of coinitiator (TiCl4) in hexane into a series of three stirred reactors maintained at about-42°C under a blanket of dry N2. By controlling the residence times of the living charges in the reactors and continuously quenching the feeds in a quenching reactor, the continuous synthesis of well-defined (in terms of molecular weights, $$\bar M_n$$ , and narrow molecular weight distribution, MWD) PIB-Cl' prepolymer was demonstrated.