E.i. Dupont De Nemours and Company

Willard L Quon

Suriyanarayan Dorai

William W Kasper

Timothy D Van Domelen

Gerfried Pruckmayr

Marianne Marsi

Kirk Matthew Schall

Gary A Hida

A process for polymerizing tetrahydrofuran using a fluorinated resin containing sulfonic acid groups a trifluoromethane sulfonic acid as catalyst and a mixture of maleic acid and maleic anhydride as weight control agent. The product has the formula ##STR1## which can be hydrogenated to produce polytetramethylene ether glycol. The preferred molecular weight range of the polytetramethylene ether glycol is 600 to 4,000.

Polymerization of tetrahydrofuran using a fluorinated acidic catalyst

A catalyst and process for preparing it and its use in polymerizing tetrahydrofuran to produce polytetramethylene ether glycol ether are disclosed. The catalyst is a blend of a fluorinated resin containing sulfonic acid groups and a fluorinated resin containing carboxylic acid groups. The catalyst is partially dried to contain from 1,000 to 2,000 ppm water, so that when it is used to polymerize tetrahydrofuran, the product polytetramethylene ether glycol will have a number average molecular weight of from 250 to 4,000.

Polymerizing tetrahydrofuran to produce polytetramethylene ether glycol

The color level of poly(tetramethylene ether) glycol made by polymerizing tetrahydrofuran using fluosulfonic acid as the catalyst is significantly lower if the fluosulfonic acid contains no more than about 1200 ppm of iron sulfites.

Process for preparing poly(tetramethylene ether) glycol

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Willard L Quon