Isoprene butadiene stereospecific

For instance, in the field of elastomers, alkyllithium catalyst systems are used commercially for producing butadiene homopolymers and copolymers and, to a somewhat lesser extent, polyisoprene. Another class of important, industrial polymerization systems consists of those catalyzed by alkylaluminum compounds and various compounds of transition metals used as cocatalysts. The symposium papers reported several variations of these polymerization systems in which cocatalysts are titanium halides for isoprene or propylene and cobalt salts for butadiene. The stereospecificity and mechanism of polymerization with these monomers were compared using the above cocatalysts as well as vanadium trichloride. Also included is the application of Ziegler-Natta catalysts to the rather novel polymerization of 1,3-pentadiene to polymeric cis-1,4 stereoisomers which have potential interest as elastomers. 

Polymerization of butadiene and of isoprene confronts us with still another configurational problem. The addition may take place in either the 1,2 or 1,4 positions (with an additional possibility of 3,4 addition in the case of isoprene), and, moreover, in the 1,4 addition the new unit may acquire a cis or a trans configuration. It is known that by proper choice of a catalyst and by judicious adjustment of polymerization conditions processes can be developed which yield polymers of high stereospecificity, namely all 1,4 cis, all 1,4 trans, all 1,2 isotactic, or all 1,2 syndiotactic polymers. 

Selenosulfonylation of olefins in the presence of boron trifluoride etherate produces chiefly or exclusively M products arising from a stereospecific anti addition, from which vinyl sulfones can be obtained by stereospecific oxidation-elimination with m-chloroper-benzoic acid134. When the reaction is carried out on conjugated dienes, with the exception of isoprene, M 1,2-addition products are generally formed selectively from which, through the above-reported oxidation-elimination procedure, 2-(phenylsulfonyl)-l,3-dienes may be prepared (equation 123)135. Interestingly, the selenosulfonylation of butadiene gives quantitatively the 1,4-adduct at room temperature, but selectively 1,2-adducts at 0°C. Furthermore, while the addition to cyclic 1,3-dienes, such as cyclohexadiene and cycloheptadiene, is completely anti stereospecific, the addition to 2,4-hexadienes is nonstereospecific and affords mixtures of erythro and threo isomers. For both (E,E)- and ( ,Z)-2,4-hexadienes, the threo isomer prevails if the reaction is carried out at room temperature. 

Stereospecific polymerization has particular significance for the preparation of stereoregular polymeric dienes. In the radical polymerization of butadiene or isoprene the molecular chains always consist of varying proportions of adjacent cis- and trans-1,4-units as well as 1,2- and 3,4- linked units, depending on the polymerization conditions but it is now possible, using particular ionic initiation systems to make a synthetic natural rubber that contains more than 90% cfs-l,4-isoprene repeating units (see Example 3-21). 

Again in polybutadiene, one finds sodium, potassium, rubidium and cesium giving polybutadienes fairly similar in structure varying from 35% 1,4 for sodium to 55% 1,4 for potassium and the 1,4 fraction varying from 71 to 85% trans. The trans-1,4 content is significantly lower than was observed in the case of polyisoprene. Again lithium is far removed from the other alkali metals, but in this instance the percentage 1,4 is now 85%, and of this 1,4 fraction only 40% is cis. The extreme stereospecificity which one finds in the isoprene case is not so pronounced with butadiene. 

To establish conditions that lead to the formation of stereoregular cis or trans polymers from butadiene and isoprene, a series of combinations of a transition metal compound with and alkylaluminum compound were tested for catalytic effect. In this connection considerable attention was given to those catalyst systems that had been found attractive for the stereospecific polymeri-... 

Annex 2 Stereospecific Polymerization of Conjugated Diolefins Butadiene and Isoprene... 

The catalysis of the stereospecific polymerization of conjugated dienes is of considerable interest from both the scientific and the industrial points of view [1,2]. From butadiene and isoprene, as the industrially most important 1,3-dienes, in comparison with the polymerization of olefins many more structurally different stereoregular polymers can be derived cf the structures of the stereoregular polybutadienes and polyisoprenes given in Scheme 1 [106]. 

Stereospecific Polymerization of Butadiene or Isoprene 309 Cobalt-Polybutadiene... 

Lithium dialkylamide having bulky alkyl groups, such as isopropyl groups, exhibits unique behavior in polymerization reactions of isoprene and divinylbenzene. It was previously reported by us that lithium dialkylamide underwent a stereospecific addition reaction with butadiene in the presence of an appropriate amount of dialkylamine in cyclohexane as solvent (1, 2). For instance, on reacting with butadiene, lithium diethylamide gave the sole adduct, 1-diethylamino-cis-butene-2, in a 98-997o purity. In the absence of free amine, on the other hand, no reaction took place under the same experimental conditions (50°C... 

Stereospecific polymerization of 1,3-dienes (10-18) (to butadiene) and isoprene homo- and copolymers), dimerization of propene (19) and recently stereospecific polymerization of acetylene (20) to high cis-content polyacetylene have all been reported using lanthanide catalysts. Sen (21) has reported the preparation of cationic europium systems (which perhaps function as cationic initiators) for polymerization of norbornadiene and 1,3-cyclohexa-diene. 

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