Division of a polyarylene ether solution

A process for producing polyarylene ether beads, the process comprising:

• i) dividing a polyarylene ether solution in a division apparatus vibrating at a frequency of 10 to 1400 Hz to obtain droplets;
• and
• ii) transferring the droplets into a precipitation bath to form polyarylene ether beads,
• wherein:
• the precipitation bath satisfies the following conditions
• (A) the precipitation bath comprises at least one aprotic solvent (component (1)) and at least one protic solvent (component (2)),
• (B) the precipitation bath has a temperature of 0° C. to Tc, where the critical temperature Tc in [° C.] is determined by the numerical equation Tc=(77−c)/0.58 in which c is the concentration of the component (1) in the precipitation bath in [% by weight], and
• (C) the precipitation bath has the component (1) in concentrations of 5% by weight to cc, where the critical concentration cc in [% by weight] is determined by the numerical equation cc=77−0.58*T in which T is the temperature in the precipitation bath in [° C.];
• percentages by weight are each based on a sum of the percentages by weight of the component (1) and of the component (2) in the precipitation bath;
• the precipitation bath comprises water, alcohol, or both, as the component (2);
• the polyarylene ether solution has a concentration of 5 to 50% by weight of polyarylene ether in the at least one aprotic solvent, where percentages by weight are based on a sum of the percentages by weight of the polyarylene ether and the at least one aprotic solvent;
• the polyarylene ether solution on division has a temperature of 15 to 250° C.;
• the aprotic solvent is selected from the group consisting of N-methylpyrrolidone, M-ethylpyrrolidone, dimethyl sulfoxide, dimethylformamide, sulfolane, diphenyl sulfone, 1,2-dichlorobenzene, hexamethylphosphoramide and mixtures thereof;
• and
• wherein, in the polyarylene ether beads precipitated from the precipitation bath in (ii), a content of particles having a particle size of less than or equal to 1000 μm is 2.1% by weight or less.