MOLECULAR-WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION OF STYRENE OLIGOMER

The molecular weight distribution (MWD) was examined by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) on three samples of styrene oligomers prepared by anionic oligomerization, each of which had averaged degree of polymerization less than ten. Accurate information for MWD could be easily obtained, when a GPC column system was designed to have sufficiently high resolution in the oligomeric region and a correction was made for effect of polymerization degree on the refractive index as GPC response. MWD thus evaluated by GPC was found to be in good agreement with that predicted from the kinetics of ideal living-polymerization process. The observed distribution was, however, slightly narrower than theoretical one for the oligomer with very low degree of polymerization. © 1979, The Society of Polymer Science, Japan. All rights reserved.