ABSTRACT
T. Kodaira et al. synthesized a series of new liquid crystalline poly(vinyl ethers) by cationic polymerizations of vinyl ethers with two ester groups in the pendant mesogenic units. By the coupling reaction of cationic living polymers with a tetrafunctional silyl enol ether, a variety of amphiphilic tetraarmed star block polymers were synthesized. Although the sorts of monomers and initiators of living vinyl cationic polymerizations have rapidly increased, the nature of the living propagating species is not fully understood in many cases. S. Nakahama et al are continuing their study for living anionic polymerizations of pendant-functionalized monomers. The polymers of molecular weight of 1600–20300 and polydispersity of 1.13–1.19 were obtained in nearly quantitative yield. Among stereoregular polymers, the formations of heterotactic polymers require a higher order of stereoregulation than those for isotactic and syndiotactic polymers, because meso and racemic additions should occur in an alternate manner.
