Process for making polyetherester resins having high aromatic diester content
AssigneeArco Chemical Technology, L.P.
InventorLau S. Yang
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Abstract
A process for making polyetherester resins is disclosed. A glycol ester of an aromatic diacid such as terephthalic acid is reacted with a polyether and a source of a dicarboxylic acid such as maleic anhydride to produce a polyetherester resin, wherein the aromatic diester content may be conveniently adjusted as desired. The process permits the preparation of unsaturated polyetherester resins with relatively high levels of terephthalate repeating units while avoiding the difficulties associated with the direct use of terephthalic acid in previously known procedures. Such unsaturated polyetheresters are useful for making thermoset resins with excellent mechanical and physical properties.
Claims21
A method of making a polyetherester resin comprised of aromatic diester repeating units comprising reacting a glycol ester of an aromatic diacid, a polyether and a dicarboxylic acid source at a temperature and in the presence of a catalyst effective to accomplish insertion of the aromatic diacid and the dicarboxylic acid source into the polyether to form the polyetherester resin.
A method of making an unsaturated polyetherester resin comprised of terephthalate repeating units comprising reacting a 2-methyl-1,3-propanediol ester of terephthalic acid, a polyether polyol comprised of oxypropylene repeating units and having an average hydroxyl functionality of from 2 to 6 and a number average molecular weight of from 400 to 12,000, and an unsaturated cyclic anhydride at a temperature and in the presence of a protic acid catalyst having a pKa of less than 0 effective to accomplish insertion of the terephthalic acid and unsaturated cyclic anhydride into the polyether polyol to form the unsaturated polyetherester resin.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.