Relative activities of siloxane monomers toward the cation exchange resin-catalyst in the equilibration reactions

The relative activities of a number of siloxane monomers, both cyclic and linear, toward the cation exchange resin-equilibration catalyst were determined. The determination was based on the fact that when a particular siloxane compound is added to an arbitrarily chosen equilibrate, it takes part in the equilibration process, provoking certain viscosity changes of the reaction mixture. Taking these viscosity changes as a measure of activities, the following order was obtained: hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane > hexamethyldisiloxane > octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane > one linear all-methyl oligosiloxane of number average molecular weight of approximately 800 > decamethylcyclopentasiloxane. The results obtained by using the described viscosimetrical determination method were controlled by measuring the number average molecular weights of the reaction mixtures at the beginning and at the end of the equilibration process. The deviations of the experimentally measured from the calculated values were less than 20 %, as was found in one equilibration system. In most other systems the deviations were about 10 % which is a very good result which strengthens the validity of the applied determination method.