Scale-Up of Microwave-Assisted Polymerizations in Continuous-Flow Mode: Cationic Ring-Opening Polymerization of 2-Ethyl-2-oxazoline

Paulus, Renzo M.; Erdmenger, Tina; Becer, C. Remzi; Hoogenboom, Richard; Schubert, Ulrich S.

Abstract:

Microwave-assisted polymerizations is a growing field of interest because the use of microwave irradiation instead of thermal heating was demonstrated to result in faster, cleaner, and higher yielding reactions. To overcome the one-at-a-time nature of preparing polymerizations in single microwave vials and the possible scale- up method for microwave-assisted polymerizations, the use of continuous-flow reactions under microwave irradiation seems to be ideal. In this contribution, we report for the first time the use of different continuous-flow microwave reactors for polymerizations, using the cationic ring-opening polymerizations of 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline as a model system. In addition, the observed broader molecular-weight distributions were correlated to residence time distributions of the continuous-flow reactors that were determined using methyl orange as the flow marker.

Year:

2007

Type of Publication:

Article

Journal:

Macromolecular Rapid Communications

Volume:

28

Pages:

484 - 491