EP0532893

The present invention is a novel process of preparing a reactive reduced molecular weight polyarylene polyether from a starting polyarylene polyether, wherein said reduced molecular weight polyarylene polyether has a lower molecular weight than said starting polyarylene polyether. The process comprises the steps of first contacting said starting polyarylene polyether with a nucleophilic reagent for a period of time sufficient to reduce the molecular weight of said starting polyarylene polyether, and then recovering said reactive reduced molecular weight polyarylene polyether. The reactive reduced molecular weight polyarylenes produced by such process can be used in combination with various other resins. This process produces many novel reactive polyarylene polyethers represented by the formula wherein Ar is a bivalent aromatic residue of a polyarylene polyether, Ar may vary within said reactive polyarylene polyether, at least a portion of Ar comprises an aromatic ether or an aromatic thioether group that is ortho or para in position to at least one SO2 group; E represents reactive groups having at least one reactive site, that are located at chain termini, along a chain, or both; z is the number average reactive sites per chain, 0.1