Unusual Role of Dimers in Thermal Polymerization of Chloroprene

Abstract

THE dimerization products of chloroprene have been shown to consist principally of two substituted cyclo-hexenes and an eight-membered cyclic diene¹. Carothers et al.² have noted the presence of a distinct oligomeric fraction in the polymerization products of chloroprene, and more recently Klebanskii et al.³ have shown that this fraction contains both six- and eight-membered cyclic dimers. In previous kinetic studies of the thermal polymerization of chloroprene, no special account has been taken of the formation of dimers; it has been tacitly assumed, for example, that the rate and the observed activation energy of the thermal polymerization^4,5 refer to a direct polymerization of the chloroprene monomer.