Gradsten and Pollock emphasized the need for freshly distilled acrylonitrile. We found in a series of five experiments that better yields and more easily controlled reactions consistently resulted from using cornrnercially available acrylonitrile. 3 We believe this finding may be explained by the tendency of the impurities in the acrylonitrile to inhibit polymerization, since reactions involving freshly distilled acrylonitrile occasionally became uncontrollably ...
