Patent ID: 8183336

Claim:
A poly(arylene sulfide) obtained by polymerizing a sulfur source and a dihalo-aromatic compound in the presence of an alkali metal hydroxide in an organic amide solvent and washing the polymerized poly(arylene sulfide) resulting from the polymerization with a hydrophilic organic solvent containing water in a proportion of 1 to 20% by weight, wherein (i) the content of nitrogen contained in an extract from the washed poly(arylene sulfide) extracted by a mixed solvent containing 40% by weight of acetonitrile and 60% by weight of water is at most 50 ppm on the basis of the weight of the washed poly(arylene sulfide), (ii) the content of a low-molecular weight component extracted by Soxhlet extraction with chloroform from the washed poly(arylene sulfide) is at most 3.0% by weight, and (iii) the melt viscosity of the washed poly(arylene sulfide) is 1 to 3,000 Pa·s as measured at a temperature of 310° C. and a shear rate of 1,216 sec −1 .