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Scale‐Up of Microwave‐Assisted Polymerizations in Continuous‐Flow Mode: Cationic Ring‐Opening Polymerization of 2‐Ethyl‐2‐oxazoline
Author(s) -
Paulus Renzo M.,
Erdmenger Tina,
Becer C. Remzi,
Hoogenboom Richard,
Schubert Ulrich S.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/marc.200600756
Subject(s) - cationic polymerization , ring opening polymerization , polymer chemistry , oxazoline , polymerization , materials science , flow chemistry , chemical engineering , chemistry , polymer , organic chemistry , composite material , catalysis , engineering
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.