Patent ID: 9499683
Filing Date: 2016-11-22
CPC Classification: C08C,C08K,C08L

Claim Text:
1. A process for stabilizing a polymer from Mooney viscosity growth, the method comprising: (i) polymerizing conjugated diene monomer, optionally with monomer copolymerizable therewith, with an organolithium initiator to provide a polymer cement having living polymer therein; (ii) reacting the living polymer with a functionalizing agent including a hydrolyzable group to provide a polymer cement including a functionalized polymer having a hydrolyzable functionality, where the polymer cement is thereby substantially non-living, where the polymer cement includes lithium compounds as basic species; (iii) introducing a stabilizing agent to the polymer cement, where the stabilizing agent is defined by the formula where χ is a hydrolyzable group that forms an acidic species upon hydrolysis, where R 2 , R 3 , and R 4 are each independently a halogen atom, a hydrocarbyl group, a hydrocarboxylate group, or a hydrocarbyloxy group, where the stabilizing agent produces acidic species to neutralize the basic species and where the amount of stabilizing agent introduced to the polymer cement is tailored to produce a polymer cement having a neutral pH; and (iv) isolating the functionalized polymer from the polymer cement to thereby produce an isolated polymer having increased resistance to Mooney growth caused by condensation of the hydrolyzable functionalities.