Kinetically controlled formation of macrocyclic oligomers in the ring‐opening polymerization

Kinetic schemes are solved for polymerization systems involving competition between linear growth and cyclisation by back‐biting to an optional chain unit and/or to the last unit (end‐to‐end ring closure). A fast reaction of a growing centre with an end group may lead to a situation, called here “kinetic enhancement in macrorings”, in which the transient concentration of cyclics formed in polymerization system exceeds their equilibrium concentration. Sometimes, a peculiar kinetics may be observed in which propagation proceeds on linear active macromolecules, but the polymerization leads almost exclusively to the cyclic products. On the other hand, fast propagation due to a high reactivity of monomer may lead to kinetic reduction of macrorings. Several situations are considered with examples taken from cationic polymerization of cyclic acetals and siloxanes (kinetic enhancement) or anionic polymerization of ϵ‐caprolactone (kinetic reduction). Kinetic schemes are numerically solved by computer for some arbitrarily assumed rate constants. This is the first paper of a series aiming to relate the kinetically controlled concentration of macrorings to the polymerization mechanism and the numerical values of the rate constants.