Acid-catalyzed depolymerization of poly(α-methylstyrene) derivatives

H. Ito et al. reported synthesis of poly(p-hydroxy-α-methylstyrene) (p-PHOMS) by thermal deprotection of poly(p-t-butoxycarbonyloxy-α-methylstyrene) (p-PBOCMS). We have continued to study acidolysis of poly(α-methylstyrene) (PMS) derivatives and report in this paper very efficient depolymerization of p-PHOMS catalyzed by a photochemically generated strong Bronsted acid in the solid state. The depolymerization mechanism we propose in this paper is different from the one, which involves scission of the bond between the α-carbon and the aromatic Cl.