NMR Investigations of the Catalyst–Monomer Interaction and Stereochemistry of the Product in Catalytic Polymerization of 2-Hydroxyethyl Methacrylate

Abstract

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has been used to study the structure of the product and possible intermediates in the polymerization of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate catalyzed by the oxovanadium (IV) complex. The assumption of the coordination nature of the polymerization is confirmed by noncovalent interactions between monomer and the catalyst, which has been examined by NMR on ¹H, ¹³C, and ¹⁷O nuclei. The catalyst affects remarkably the stereospecificity of the reaction. The resulting polymer with high molecular weight Mn ≈ 200,000 has a predominantly syndiotactic structure; the chain growth is satisfactorily described by the first-order Markov model with the statistical parameters P_r/m = 0.156 and P_m/r = 0.857.