Monomer sequence determinations of aryl ether sulphone copolymers as determined by 13C n.m.r.

The monomer sequence distributions of three types of aryl ether sulphone copolymers have been determined by ¹³C n.m.r. spectroscopy. Two amorphous aryl ether sulphone copolymers were shown to have transetherified (or ether interchanged) during polymerisation to become random copolymers. The residues in these copolymers were (i)—OøOøSO₂øS—and (ii)—OøSO₂øøSO₂ø—-where ø denotes 1,4-phenylene. Copolymers of 50:50 aryl ether sulphone and aryl ether ketone made from different combinations of monomers were found to have different solubilities in dimethyl sulphoxide, and from ¹³C n.m.r. data this was shown to correlate with the amount of transetherification which had taken place during the polymerisations. The ¹³C n.m.r. chemical shifts for some of the carbon nuclei in these polymers were sensititive to functional groups situated even as far away as three or four aromatic nuclei along the polymer chain.