| Abstract: | Two principally different mechanisms are discussed for the polymerisation of hydrogen cyanide. The one considers the building up of the polymer as being stepwise and based on hydrogen cyanide as the monomer, whereas the other one assigns the hydrogen cyanide dimer for being the actually polymerizing “monomer”. In the case of the “dimer polymerisation” a carbene mechanism is taken into consideration besides an anionic one. Different N-alkyl substituted hydrogen cyanide dimers were synthesized. They did not exhibit any properties of a carbene and were relatively stable. Their reactions with hydrogen cyanide were studied. A series of addition products were obtained which extensively favor the mechanism of the stepwise polymerisation. |
