One step for the synthesis of epichlorhydrin-styrene copolymers

In the present work poly(epichlorhydrin-co-styrene) copolymers were prepared successfully and cleanly by a one step process via cationic copolymerization of epichlorhydrin(ECH) with styrene (St) in heterogeneous phase using “Maghnite-H+” (Mag-H+) as catalyst in bulk, Maghnite is a montmorillonite sheet silicate clay exchanged with protons to produce Maghnite-H+. Temperature is varied between 20 and 70 °C. The effects of reaction temperature, amount of Mag-H+ and reaction time on the yield and the intrinsic viscosity (η) were investigated.A typical reaction product of poly(ECH-co-St) was analyzed by infra red spectroscopy (IR) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy as well as by viscosimetry.