Butoxytitanium trichloride

The title compound was required as an initiator for cationic polymerisations. The account of its synthesis (Vairon and Sigwalt, 1971) is interesting for several reasons The chemical reaction (5.1) was selected in preference to an alternative (TiCl4 + n-BuOH) because there are no by-products  

---

The occurrence of condensation polymerisation is not unique to isobutene. Sauvet observed it with the system titanium tetrachloride-1,1, -diphenylethylene and Vairon and Sigwalt with cyclopentadiene-butoxytitanium trichloride. A general rationalisation of this phenomenology must therefore be found. This is pven at the end of this section after a airvey of other systems involving titanium tetrachloride. 

---