This invention relates to a method for the polymerization of vinyl monomers and more specifically to a method for the manufacture of polymers having different stereospecific structures at desired ratios with ease by regulating reaction conditions.
Heretofore it has been resignedly held that vinyl monomers such as .alpha., .beta.-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, acrylonitrile and methacrylonitrile are not polymerizable with alcoholates in ordinary organic solvents. If they are somehow polymerized at all, the yields of reaction products obtained are usually found to be extremely low. It has been known to synthesize such low polymers as dimers and trimers from said vinyl monomers through the Michael reaction. It has never been known to the art, however, that the contents of different isomers of varying stereochemical structures in the produced low polymers can artificially be controlled by suitably selecting the conditions of the reaction involved.
An object of this invention is to provide a method for the manufacture of a polymer having different stereospecific structures contained at a desired ratio from a vinyl monomer selected from among .alpha., .beta.-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, acrylonitrile, methacrylonitrile, etc.
Another object of this invention is to provide a method for the manufacture of a low polymer mixture possessed of a regulated steroisomer content as desired and capable of being fractionally distilled into different stereoisomers, from a vinyl monomer selected from among .alpha., .beta.-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, acrylonitrile, methacrylonitrile, etc.