Alkene butadiene rubbers

Industrially this diene is made the same way as ethylidenenorbomene from butadiene and ethene, but now isomerisation to 2,4-hexadiene should be prevented as the polymerisation should concern the terminal alkene only. In both systems nickel or titanium hydride species react with the more reactive diene first, then undergo ethene insertion followed by (3-hydride elimination. Both diene products are useful as the diene component in EPDM rubbers (ethene, propene, diene). The nickel hydride chemistry with butadiene represents one of the early examples of organometallic reactions studied in great detail [22] (Figure 9.14). 

Unlike polyethylene and other simple alkene polymers, natural rubber is a polymer of a diene, iso )re ie (2-methyl-l,3-butadiene). The polymerization takes place by addition of isoprene monomei units to the growing chain, leading to formation of a polymer that still contains double bonds spaced regularly at four-carbon inti r-vals. As the following structure shows, these double bonds have Z stereochemistrv ... 

It has an NiAs-type structure (Fig. 15-5), and the isolated methyl groups are presumably in the lattice as the pyramidal CHJ ion.35 Sofiium amd potasstuirralkyl5 can be used for metallation reactions- for example, in eq. 6-2. They can also be prepared from Na or K dispersed on an inert support material, and such solids act as carbanionic catalysts for the cyclization, isomerization or polymerization of alkenes. The so-called alfin catalysts for copolymerization of butadiene with styrene or isoprene to give rubbers consist of sodium alkyl (usually allyl) and alkoxide (usually isopropoxide) and NaCl, which are made simultaneously in hydrocarbons.33... 

Most unsaturated substances such as alkenes, alkynes, aldehydes, acrylonitrile, epoxides, isocyanates, etc., can be converted into polymeric materials of some sort—either very high polymers, or low-molecular-weight polymers, or oligomers such as linear or cyclic dimers, trimers, etc. In addition, copolymerization of several components, e.g., styrene-butadiene-dicyclo-pentadiene, is very important in the synthesis of rubbers. Not all such polymerizations, of course, require transition-metal catalysts and we consider here only a few examples that do. The most important is Ziegler-Natta polymerization of ethylene and propene. 

One oxidation reaction that is of large industrial relevance is the oxidative dehydrogenation of light alkanes to the corresponding alkene (Scheme 3.20). This reaction has been reported to be promoted by r-GO as catalyst [29]. The importance of this reaction type is particularly high for the industrial preparation of propene from propane and butenes from butanes. Both reactions are carried out industrially in very large scale, because propene is the monomer of polypropene and also the starting material of propylene oxide, acrylonitrile, and other base chemicals. Butenes are mainly used for the preparation of 1,3-butadiene that is one of the major components of rubbers and elastomers. 

Finally, actinide complexes such as [MCp 2R2] (M = Th or U, R = alkyl or H) are very active catalysts for the hydrogenation and polymerization of olefins. The complexes [U(allyl)3X] (X = Cl, Br, I) are excellent initiators for the stereospecific polymerization of butadiene, which produces rubbers that have remarkable mechanical properties. Some other complexes are active for the heterogeneous CO reduction and alkene metathesis. The field of catalysis using organoactinide complexes should considerably expand in the near future. 

Like simple alkenes (Section 12-15), conjugated dienes can be polymerized. The elasticity of the resulting materials has led to their use as synthetic rubbers. The biochemical pathway to natural rubber features an activated form of the five-carbon unit 2-methyl-l,3-butadiene (isoprene, see Section 4-7), which is an important building block in nature. 

Copolymers in which the double bonds of 1,3-butadiene undergo polymerization with the double bonds of other alkenes have assumed increasing importance in recent years. By varying the proportions of the different monomers in the polymerization mix, the properties of the final product may be tuned over a considerable range. One such substance is a three-component copolymer of propenenitrile, 1,3-butadiene, and ethenylbenzene, known as ABS (for flcrylonitrile/ utadiene/ityrene copolymer). The diene imparts the rubber-like property of flexibility, whereas the nitrile hardens the polymer. The result is a highly versatile... 

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