Microstructure of vinylidene cyanide copolymers with linear-chain fatty acid vinyl esters

Abstract The microstructure of vinylidene cyanide (VDCN) copolymers with linear-chain fatty acid vinyl esters, vinyl propionate, vinyl butyrate and vinyl hexanoate, was studied by 67.9 MHz 13 C n.m.r. spectroscopy. It was found that the compositional sequence distributions obtained from the analysis of the cyanide carbon (VDCN-centred) pentad and the methine carbon (comonomer-centred) triad resonances of all copolymers were highly alternative. Tactic structures in the alternating sequence were almost completely atactic. The microstructures of all copolymers were not largely different from each other. So, we suppose that possible origins of piezoelectricity observed for vinylidene cyanide copolymers should be found in other factors than the microstructure.