Highly isotactic and syndiotactic poly (vinyl alcohols) (PVAs) have been prepared by the cationic polymerization of vinyl trimethylsilyl ether under suitable conditions. Some properties of these PVAs were compared with those of the conventional stereoregular PVAs.
Highly isotactic PVA showed IR band at 1145 and 1160cm
-1, which the conventional isotactic did not show. In the syndiotactic PVA, the optical density ratio D
916/D
849 was found to be larger than unity. It was also found that the ratio decreased with increasing the annealing temperature.
Syndiotacticity lowered the solubility of PVA in water. Especially, a sample with 74% syndiotacticity was found to be insoluble in water at temperatures up to 150°C, and was soluble at 160°C. Highly isotactic polymer was found to be less soluble than the conventional isotactic one.
Melting points of PVA measured by the differential thermal analysis showed a minimum at around 20% syndiotacticity.
These unusual behaviors of the highly isotactic PVA in melting points, solubility and IR spectra seem to present a token of a new crystalline state in isotactic PVA.
The IR spectra of poly (vinyl acetates) derived from highly stereoregular PVAs were identical to those of commercial ones. The syndiotactic PVAc was not soluble in acetone and benzene, which are good solvents for the atactic and isotactic PVAc, but it was soluble in chloroform and chlorobenzene.
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