The Oxidative Coupling of 2,6-Xylenol Catalyzed by Polymeric Complexes of Copper, 1. Kinetic Study of the Catalysis by Copper(II)-Complexes of Partially Aminated Polystyrene

The oxidative coupling reaction of 2,6-xylenol catalyzed by copper(II) complexes of chemically modified polystyrene was investigated. Under the applied reaction conditions the main reaction product was 2,6,2',6'-tetramethyl-1,1'-dioxo-4,4'-bicyclohexa-2,5-dienylidene. It was found that the polymeric complexes behave quite different from the low molecular analogue and that these differences can mainly be ascribed to a better complexation of copper within polymer coils. It appeared that a Michaelis-Menten description of the kinetics fits rather well when the concentration of the phenol was not too high