Terpolymerization of Ethylene and Two Different Methoxyaryl-Substituted Propylenes by Scandium Catalyst Makes Tough and Fast Self-Healing Elastomers

The terpolymerization of a non-polar olefin (such as ethylene) and two different polar functional olefins in a controlled fashion is of great interest and importance but has hardly been explored to date. We report for the first time the terpolymerization of ethylene (E) and two different methoxyaryl-substituted propylenes (A(R1)P=hexylanisyl propylene; A(R2)P=methoxynaphthyl propylene or methoxypyrenyl propylene) by a half-sandwich scandium catalyst. The terpolymerization took place in a sequence-controlled fashion, affording unique multi-block copolymers composed of two different ethylene-alt-methoxyarylpropylene sequences E-alt-A(R1)P (soft segments) and E-alt-A(R2)P (hard segments) and relatively short ethylene-ethylene (EE) blocks (crystalline segments). The terpolymers exhibited excellent elasticity and unprecedented self-healing as a result of microphase separation of nanodomains of the crystalline EE segments and the hard amorphous E-alt-A(R2)P segments from a very flexible E-alt-A(R1)P matrix, demonstrating unique synergy of the three different components.

Automated summary

The research reports the terpolymerization of ethylene and two different methoxyaryl-substituted propylenes, resulting in unique multi-block copolymers that demonstrate excellent elasticity and unprecedented self-healing abilities.