A. Ben-haida et al., Reduction of carbonyl groups in aromatic polyketones: synthesis and characterization of methylene-bridged polyaryl-ethers and -thioethers, POLYMER, 40(18), 1999, pp. 5173-5182
The carbonyl groups in eight high-performance polyaryl-etherketones and -th
ioetherketones were reduced to methylene linkages in high yield by treatmen
t at room temperature with triethylsilane in a mixture of trifluoroacetic a
cid or methanesulphonic acid with either dichloromethane or chloroform. Whe
n the starting polyketone is readily-crystallizable, the reduced polymer al
so tends to crystallize during workup. Amorphous polyketones likewise give
amorphous reduction products. The methylene-bridged polymers in general hav
e significantly lower melting points and/or glass transition temperatures t
han their parent polyketones. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights res
erved.