GAS PERMEATION AND SORPTION STUDIES ON STEREOREGULAR POLYNORBORNENE

Advances in the field of membrane gas separation over the past decade have encouraged the search for even better polymers and membranes for gas separation. They also have motivated studies on the relationship b etween the structure and the gas transport properties of different cla sses of polymers. Interest has recently been demonstrated in the liter ature in norbornene polymers with different side groups. These polymer s can easily be prepared via ring-opening metathesis polymerization (R OMP) of norbornene (bicycle [2.2.1] hept-2-ene) derivatives. So far, i nformation on the microstructure of the polymers is scarce, so little is known about the influence of stereochemistry and tacticity of the p olymer on gas separation properties. In this work, we present gas perm eability and selectivity data for stereoregular unsubstituted polynorb ornene. It will be shown that a high order of tacticity has a positive effect on both permeation and separation results. (C) 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.