Murali Krishna Akkapeddi

Some Mechanistic Aspects of the Anionic Block Copolymerization of Caprolactam and Polyether Diols

The anionic polymerization of caprolactam was first reported by Joyce and Ritter in 1941 [1], The polymerization catalyzed by metal caprolactamate is characterized by a high rate of conversion but with an induction period associated with the initiation step viz, the formation of the key acyllactam growth center. The mechanism (see Scheme I) accepted to date was first proposed by Hall [2] Mottus [3] and Sebenda [4] independently. The polymerization can be activated by the addition of suitable cocatalysts such as acyllactams [3,4] and carbamoyl lactams [5] which essentially eliminate the induction period.