Hirohisa Morishita

Morphospecific polymer from the copolymerization of trioxane and ethylene oxide

Recently, we have observed the following phenomena during the copolymerization of trioxane and ethylene oxide using a boron trifluoride initiator. In almost all of the polymerization cases, all polymers were soluble in a p-chlorophenol-tetrachloroethane mixed solvent at 90°C. However, in some polymerization cases, a small portion of the polymer was insoluble at this temperature, and this mixed solvent-insoluble fraction showed a higher melting point than that of the other fractions. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) photographs of the polymer showed that a highly fibrous structure was formed for the mixed solvent-insoluble fraction, and this highly packed structure is thought to be the origin of the high melting fraction. The nature of this high melting fraction was further examined using X-ray diffraction and Raman spectra.