Epoxidation of olefin/diene copolymers using hydrogen peroxide

A process for preparing an epoxidized α-olefin/diene copolymer material, which process comprises contacting in a reaction medium a) copolymers of an α-olefin and a diene, which copolymers contain at least one double bond in each diene-derived co-monomer, with b) a hydrogen peroxide epoxidizing agent, under reaction conditions which promote formation of oxirane rings at the sites of the diene-derived co-monomer double bonds, wherein

• a) said reaction medium comprises a reaction solvent selected from the group consisting of:
• 1,1,1,3,3,3-hexafluoro-2-propanol, hexafluoroisopropanol, tetrafluoropropanol, pentafluoropropanol, hexafluorophenylpropanol, perfluorobutyl alcohol, octafluoropentanol, hexafluor-2-propanol, pentafluoro-1-propanol, tetrafluorophenol, trifluorophenol, difluorophenol, tetrafluoro-1-propanol, 4-(trifluoromethyl)benzyl alcohol, 2,2,2-trifluoroethanol, 2,4,5-trifluorophenol, 2,4-difluorobenzyl alcohol, 2,4-difluorophenol, 4-fluorobenzyl alcohol, 2,2,3,3,3-pentafluoro-1-propanol, 2-(perfluorobutyl)ethanol, 2-(perfluorohexyl)ethanol, 2-(perfluorooctyl)ethanol, 2-(perfluorodecyl)ethanol, 2-perfluor-3-methylbutyl)ethanol, 1H,1H,3H-tetrafluoro-1-propanol, 1H,1H,5H-octafluoro-1-pentanol, 1H,1H,7H-dodecafluoro-1-heptanol, 1H,1H,9H-hexadecafluoro-1-nonanol, 2H-hexafluoro-2-propanol, 1H,1H,3H-hexafluoro-2-butanol;
• and
• b) said contacting of copolymer and hydrogen peroxide epoxidizing agent is carried out in the absence of any metal-containing epoxidation catalyst.