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Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Depolymerizable Olefinic Polymers Based on Fused-Ring Cyclooctene Monomers
Published on: December 16, 2022
Using Triethylborane to Manipulate Reactivity Ratios in Epoxide-Anhydride Copolymerization: Application to the
Vamshi K Chidara1, Yves Gnanou1, Xiaoshuang Feng1
1Physical Sciences and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
Abstract:
The anionic ring-opening copolymerization (ROCOP) of epoxides, namely of ethylene oxide (EO), with anhydrides (AH) generally produces strictly alternating copolymers. With triethylborane (TEB)-assisted ROCOP of EO with AH, statistical copolymers of high molar mass including ether and ester units could be obtained. In the presence of TEB, the reactivity ratio of EO (rEO), which is normally equal to 0 in its absence, could be progressively raised to values lower than 1 or higher than 1. Conditions were even found to obtain rEO equal or close to 1. Samples of P(EO-co-ester) with minimal compositional drift could be synthesized; upon basic degradation of their ester linkages, these samples afforded poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) diol samples of narrow molar mass distribution. In other cases where rEO were lower or higher than 1, the PEO diol samples eventually isolated after degradation exhibited a broader distribution of molar masses because of the compositional drift of initial P(EO-co-ester) samples.
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