Anhydrous precipitation of polycycloolefins

Abstract

Precipitation of polymer from a polymer cement comprising the polymer dissolved in cyclohexane is accomplished by mixing the cement with methanol whereby the polymer precipitates forming a polymer slurry comprising polymer solids dispersed in cyclohexane and methanol, heating the polymer slurry to vaporize methanol and cyclohexane in azeotropic proportion, condensing the vaporized methanol and cyclohexane whereby it separates into an upper phase that is nearly all cyclohexane and a lower phase that is rich in methanol, separating the phases, and separating the polymer from the residual slurry comprising polymer solids dispersed in methanol, the polymer being a reaction product formed by ring opening polymerization of at least one monomer containing at least one norbornene group. The process can be conducted in batchwise segments or continuously throughout.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.