EFFECT OF OXYGENATED COMPOUNDS ON 1,3-BUTADIENE POLYMERIZATIONS PERFORMED WITH NEODYMIUM VERSATATE. PART I: ALCOHOLS, ALDEHYDES, KETONES, AND WATER

Abstract

1,3-butadiene (1,3-BD) is a building block produced mainly as a byproduct of the ethylene steam cracking process. However, due to the growing interest in sustainable technologies, there is also growing interest in manufacturing 1,3-BD from ethanol. For this reason, taking into account that the ethanol-derived 1,3-BD can contain oxygenated contaminants that are difficult to remove, the present manuscript investigates for the first time how the presence of low concentrations of some oxygenates (acetaldehyde, crotonaldehyde, 3-hydroxybutyraldehyde, acetone, water, ethanol, 1,3-butanodiol, 3-buten2-ol, crotyl alcohol, and 1-butanol) in the 1,3-BD monomer can affect polymerization reactions performed with the neodymium versatate catalyst and modify the characteristics of the obtained polybutadiene products. It is shown that the presence of oxygenated compounds can cause inhibitory effects on the course of the polymerization and modify the molar mass distributions and flow properties of the final products, although all analyzed samples presented the characteristic high-cis character of polybutadienes produced with the neodymium versatate catalyst.