Influence of electronic effects from bridging groups on synthetic reaction and thermally activated polymerization of bisphenol‐based benzoxazines

Six bis‐benzoxazines based on bisphenols with different bridging groups, C(CH3)2, CH2, O, CO, SO2, and single bond, were synthesized in toluene. The influence of electronic effects from bridging groups on ring‐forming reaction and thermal ring‐opening polymerization were relatively discussed in detail. Their structures were characterized by high‐performance liquid chromatography, Fourier transform infrared, 1H NMR, differential scanning calorimetry, and elementary analysis. The quantum chemistry parameters of the bisphenols and bis‐benzoxazines were calculated by molecular simulation. The results indicated that the electron‐withdrawing groups inhibited the synthetic reaction by decreasing the charge density of α‐Cs of bisphenols and increasing energy barriers of the synthetic reactions. However, the electron‐withdrawing groups promoted the thermally activated polymerization, which resulted from their activation energy and curing temperature decrease by increasing the bond length and lowering the bond energy of CO on oxazine rings. Besides, because of stronger electron‐withdrawing sulfone group, there were more arylamine methylene Mannich bridge structure in the polybenzoxazine.