Climbing Back up the Nucleophilic Reactivity Scale. Use of Cyclosila Derivatives as Reactivity Boosters in Anionic Polymerization

Abstract

It has been well-known for a very long time that, for anionic homo-polymerization or sequential copolymerization to occur, it is mandatory that the relative nucleophilic reactivity of the initiating species be equal to or larger than the one of the (co)monomer. However, the results described in this paper demonstrate that such a classic rule can be circumvented in some cases. Indeed, it is reported for the first time that potassium trimethylsilanolate, and “living” potassium poly(ethylene oxide), both of which are unable to initiate styrene or methyl methacrylate (MMA) polymerization, can be converted from oxyanionic active ends to silyl anionic ones by reacting with cyclic disila derivatives, so allowing the homopolymerization and sequential (co)polymerization of styrene or MMA to proceed in a controlled manner.