Carbonylation polymerizations, palladium

After ARCO patents issued, Stille and coworkers published on butadiene oxycarbonylation(14-16). Palladium was utilized as the oxidative carbonylation catalyst and copper(II) chloride was employed as a stoichiometric reoxidation agent for palladium. Although the desired hex-3 -enedioate is the exclusive product, commercial technology which uses stoichiometric copper is not practical. Once the copper(Il) is consumed, the monoatomic palladium spent catalyst agglomerates affording polymeric palladium which is not easily reoxidized to an active form. 

An oxidative environment is also an essential element in maintaining catalytic activity. Air is used as the copper(l) reoxidant for safety reasons. Oxygen partial pressure must be held between 2 volume % and 6 volume % during the redox cycle. If the oxygen partial pressure falls below 2 volume %, monoatomic palladium(O) does not reoxidize to palladium(Il) at a sufficient rate, and some catalytic activity is lost due to polymeric palladium metal formation. Under typical oxycarbonylation conditions, copper(ll) cannot reoxidize polymeric palladium metal. An oxygen partial pressure greater than 6 volume % affords a potentially explosive gas mixture with carbon monoxide. Oxygen partial pressure control within these limits was easily achieved in the oxidative-carbonylation pilot plant reactor. 

The most widely employed synthetic route to aramids is based on the polycondensation of dicarboxylic acids with diamines in the presence of condensing agents. Good reviews on the synthesis of aramids have recently appeared (1-3). Recently, promising alternative synthetic routes to aramids have been reported and are described herein. These include the polycondensation of N-silylated diamines with diacid chlorides, the addition-elimination reaction of dicarboxylic acids with diisocyanates, and the palladium-catalyzed carbonylation polymerization of aromatic dibromides, aromatic diamines and carbon monoxide. 

Further intramolecular reaction of the poly(phenylene)-type polymer leads to more condensed polymers. Tour synthesized polymer 84 bearing a carbonyl moiety and a protected amino group in the phenylene rings by the reaction of boronate 83 and a dibromobenzene monomer. The polymerization takes place in the presence of a palladium catalyst in DME-H2O at 85 °C to give 84 that showed 3/n = 9850-28400 = 1.85-3.70) in 63-97% yields. The resulting polymer 84 is... 

Methyl methacrylate (MMA) is an important commodity since it is polymerized to give poly methylmethacrylate (PMMA), a strong, durable and transparent polymer sold under the trade-names Perspex and Plexiglas. Since the conventional routes to MMA involve either the reaction of acetone with HCN to give the cyanohydrin (which has environmental problems), or the oxidation of isobutene, alternative carbonylation routes to MMA are being developed. One of these is the Lucite Alpha process which is claimed to decrease production costs by ca. 40%. This first synthesizes methyl propionate by a methoxycarbonylation of ethylene (Equation 23), using a palladium catalyst with very high (99.8%) selectivity. In the second step, MMA is formed in 95% selectivity by the reaction of methyl propionate with formaldehyde (Equation 24). 

The insertion of CO into palladium carbon bonds is a common step in many palladium-catalyzed carbonylation reactions and polymerizations. This reaction takes place under moderate CO pressure (1-3 atm). From the range of compounds that can be carbonylated, it can be inferred that CO will insert into alkyl, aryl, and alkynic bonds (equation 13). One of the few types of Pd-C bonds inert to CO insertion is the Pd-acyl bond, thus only single carbonylations are normally observed. However, a few examples of double carbonylation have been reported. In the case of palladium-catalyzed formation of PhCOCONEt2 from Phi, CO, and NHEt2, reductive elimination from a bisacyl complex has been established as the mechanism, rather than CO insertion into a Pd-acyl bond. 

With mesityl oxide, the Pt(II) compFex involves coordination of both the double bond and the carbonyl oxygen 464). The product is, however, polymeric in nature (216). With palladium(II), the 7r-allylic dimer is formed (464). 

The acid-catalyzed hydrocarboxylation of alkenes (the Koch reaction) can be performed in a number of ways. In one method, the alkene is treated with carbon monoxide and water at 100-350°C and 500-1000-atm pressure with a mineral acid catalyst. However, the reaction can also be performed under milder conditions. If the alkene is first treated with CO and catalyst and then water added, the reaction can be accomplished at 0-50°C and 1-100 atm. If formic acid is used as the source of both the CO and the water, the reaction can be carried out at room temperature and atmospheric pressure.The formic acid procedure is called the Koch-Haaf reaction (the Koch-Haaf reaction can also be applied to alcohols, see 10-77). Nearly all alkenes can be hydrocarboxylated by one or more of these procedures. However, conjugated dienes are polymerized instead. Hydrocarboxylation can also be accomplished under mild conditions (160°C and 50 atm) by the use of nickel carbonyl as catalyst. Acid catalysts are used along with the nickel carbonyl, but basic catalysts can also be employed. Other metallic salts and complexes can be used, sometimes with variations in the reaction procedure, including palladium, platinum, and rhodium catalysts. The Ni(CO)4-catalyzed oxidative carbonylation with CO and water as a nucleophile is often called Reppe carbonylationP The toxic nature of nickel... 

There is a notable tendency to form oligomers when acetylenic substances interact with compounds of metals, and this tendency is also shown by butadiene 117) (see Section IV, B,d). This is particularly so with the carbonyls of iron and cobalt, and the oligomerization reactions are favored with nickel 121) and with palladium compounds 113, 122, 123). This phenomenon may be related to the hydropolymerization of acetylenes on metal surfaces, and it may be that such polymerization processes would be better described in terms of ir-complexes. 

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