Aromatic polymer production

Claim 1

A process for the separation of an aromatic etherketone polymer or etherketone/sulphone copolymer containing phenylene groups linked by oxygen atoms and by ketone groups, not more than 25% of the combined total of ketone and sulphone groups being sulphone groups, from the reaction product resulting from the nucleophilic polycondensation of at least one member of the group consisting of i) a mixture of 49-50% molar of at least one alkali metal bisphenate and correspondingly 51-50% molar of at least one dihalo compound, and ii) at least one alkali metal halophenate, in an aromatic sulphone solvent of formula ##STR14## in which Y is a direct link, oxygen or a pair of hydrogen atoms, one attached to each benzene ring, and Z and Z', which may be the same or different, are hydrogen atoms or phenyl groups, comprising cooling the reaction product from the polymerisation temperature until the reaction product has solidified, finely dividing the reaction product, leaching out the alkali metal halide with water and then heating the resultant finely divided material to a temperature of at least 200° C, but below the melting point of the material, under reduced pressure to distil off any remaining water and the aromatic sulphone solvent.