1.

Title:

Intrinsic Self-Initiating Thermal Ring-Opening Polymerization of 1,3-Benzoxazines

Without the Influence of Impurities Using Very High Purity Crystals

2. Author(s):

Lu Han, Maria Laura Salum, Kan Zhang, Pablo Froimowicz, Hatsuo Ishida

3. Year of Study:

2017

4. Name of Journal, Volume number, page numbers:

Journal of Polymer Science, Part A: Polymer Chemistry, 55, 3434-3445

5. List two important facts related to the topic that were described in the
introduction.

Polybenzoxazines are typically synthesized using cationic ring-opening

polymerization and without the need of a catalyst, being thermally initiated around
150-230C.
Thermal initiation is a very popular subject of studies because it allows high
purity monomers to be polymerized into high purity polymers, with no catalyst
contamination.

6. What is/are the main research questions or objectives for this article? Do not
simply restate the title.

The researchers are studying whether polybenzoxazines require a catalyst initiator

to reach a desired conversion rate, or if thermal intiation is sufficient and
therfore a higher purity can be achieved.

7. Is there a hypothesis stated? If so, state the hypothesis. If not, why do you
think no hypothesis is stated?

In the introduction, the researchers state that they believe a sufficient

conversion rate can be achieved for the ROP of polybenzoxazines using thermal
initiation and no catalyst.

8. List a few of the methodologies used to conduct the research.

The authors ran several polymerizations with and without a catalyst initiator,
comparing many chemical and physical test results/parameters for each.

9. How are the results presented? Table, graphs, charts? Are they easy to
understand?

The results are presented as a wide variety of tables, charts, and graphs. These
include DSC thermograms, FTIR, NMR, elemental analysis, resonance structures, and
energy plots. The large amount of graphical figures helped relay the complex
subject matter in a simple way.

10. List two results of the study.

Figure 4 in the results section represents that an extremely high purity was
achieved using a thermal initator.
The Elemental Analysis shows that the expected vs actual amounts of each element
were less than 1% apart, representing an extremely high purity.

11. List one conclusion of the work.

While impurities are not necessary to thermally initiate the polymerization, they
do help the lower the polymerization temperature.

12. What implications or suggestions, if any, are offered for future research?

The authors state the implication of their research as the ability to investigate
uses for high purity polybenzoxazine.

13. Is there anything additional the author should have done in your opinion?

The authors could have explained why PH-a is currently a hot research topic on the
market and potential uses for it.

14. What is different about this published work compared to previous work cited in
the background section?

Similar studies have used catalyst initiators which led to impurities during the
polymerization.

15. Has the work been funded by a specific source? If so, name the source(s) of
funding?

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