Cobalt complexes - chain transfer

Enikolopyan et al.til found that certain Co11 porphyrin complexes (eg. 87) function as catalytic chain transfer agents. Later work has established that various square planar cobalt complexes (e.g. the cobaloximes 88-92) are effective transfer agents.Ij2 m The scope and utility of the process has been reviewed several times,1 lt>JM ns most recently by Hcuts et al,137 Gridnev,1 3X and Gridnev and Ittel."0 The latter two references1provide a historical perspective of the development of the technique. 

The most important side reactions are disproportionation between the cobalt(ll) complex and the propagating species and/or -elimination of an alkcnc from the cobalt(III) intermediate. Both pathways appear unimportant in the case of acrylate ester polymerizations mediated by ConTMP but are of major importance with methacrylate esters and S. This chemistry, while precluding living polymerization, has led to the development of cobalt complexes for use in catalytic chain transfer (Section 6.2.5). 

The corresponding reactions of transient Co(OEP)H with alkyl halides and epoxides in DMF has been proposed to proceed by an ionic rather than a radical mechanism, with loss of from Co(OEP)H to give [Co(TAP), and products arising from nucleophilic attack on the substrates. " " Overall, a general kinetic model for the reaction of cobalt porphyrins with alkenes under free radical conditions has been developed." Cobalt porphyrin hydride complexes are also important as intermediates in the cobalt porphyrin-catalyzed chain transfer polymerization of alkenes (see below). 

Cobalt porphyrin complexes are involved in the chain transfer catalysis of the free-radical polymerization of acrylates. Chain transfer catalysis occurs by abstraction of a hydrogen atom from a grow ing polymer radical, in this case by Co(Por) to form Co(Por)H. The hydrogen atom is then transferred to a new monomer, which then initiates a new propagating polymer chain. The reaction steps are shown in Eqs. 12 (where R is the polymer chain. X is CN), (13), and (14)." ... 

The tris-allyl complex, in each case, produced a 1.2 growth step of the butadiene molecule. With the more anionic (or less cationic) cobalt salt, the growth occured to only the dimer before it underwent anionic hydride chain transfer. With less anionic chromium the 1.2 chain growth continued on the produce polymer. 

A chromophore such as the quinone, ruthenium complex, C(,o. or viologen is covalently introduced at the terminal of the heme-propionate side chain(s) (94-97). For example, Hamachi et al. (98) appended Ru2+(bpy)3 (bpy = 2,2 -bipyridine) at one of the terminals of the heme-propionate (Fig. 26) and monitored the photoinduced electron transfer from the photoexcited ruthenium complex to the heme-iron in the protein. The reduction of the heme-iron was monitored by the formation of oxyferrous species under aerobic conditions, while the Ru(III) complex was reductively quenched by EDTA as a sacrificial reagent. In addition, when [Co(NH3)5Cl]2+ was added to the system instead of EDTA, the photoexcited ruthenium complex was oxidatively quenched by the cobalt complex, and then one electron is abstracted from the heme-iron(III) to reduce the ruthenium complex (99). As a result, the oxoferryl species was detected due to the deprotonation of the hydroxyiron(III)-porphyrin cation radical species. An extension of this work was the assembly of the Ru2+(bpy)3 complex with a catenane moiety including the cyclic bis(viologen)(100). In the supramolecular system, vectorial electron transfer was achieved with a long-lived charge separation species (f > 2 ms). 

Most catalytic systems used in industrial production yield polyalkenes with very long chains which are unsuitable for current processing procedures and applications. For regulating molecular mass, H2 is preferred to organometal-lics. Hydrogen is not a suitable transfer agent in diene polymerizations on cobalt complexes [67] because it reduces the Co (II) zr-allylic centre to inactive Co (I) particles. 

As with cobaloximes, substituents on the equatorial ligand have only a moderate effect on the value of Cc for the complexes in Table 3. The same is true for substituents on cobalt porphyrins, 1 and 45—51 (Table 4). For tetrakis(pentafluoroethylphenyl)-porphyrin—Co11 the substituent effect is not clear. The fluorinated porphyrin works moderately for the polymerization of MMA in supercritical C02 with chain-transfer constant Cc = 550 at 60 °C.126 Unfortunately, no data on the chain-transfer constant in bulk polymerization are available, so that it is not clear whether this reduced value of Cc is the result of solvent or the presence of a strong EWG such as pentafluorophenyl in the porphyrin macrocycle. Similar experiments with 9c (Table 2) led to Cc = 378 000, which is 20 times higher than in bulk MMA or in organic solvents.30 We may conclude at this point that additional experiments are required with different catalysts to allow us to make reliable conclusions. 

There is little support for the mechanism expressed by eqs 12 and 13. MMA is able to form a -complex with cobalt porphyrins,160 but the chain-transfer constant for its formation (1.8 L/mol s) is not high and is much smaller than the observed CCT chain-transfer constants. If the mechanism of eqs 12 and 13 is correct, then reduced concentrations of monomer should disfavor formation of LCoM, resulting in a decrease in the rate of CCT. The chain-transfer constant of the chain transfer is independent of the concentration of monomer.14,52 The mechanism expressed by eqs 12 and 13 will not be considered further. 

Cobalt tetraphenylporphyrin complex promotes a chain-transfer reaction in the radical polymerization of MMA to give an MMA oligomer with vinylidene unsaturation at the chain end.124 An alternative method of introducing the terminal unsaturation was disclosed by Meijs et al,125 Substituted allylic sulphides are used as chain transfer agents in which sulphide groups act as leaving group as follows ... 

The porphyrin cobalt complex in radical polymerization of methylmethacrylate catalyzes the chain transfer to the monomer without affecting the polymerization rate. The phthalocyanine cobalt complex catalyzes the chain termination. 

Cobalt(ll) macrocyclic complexes (Figure 1.1, Table 1.5) are the best available chain transfer catalysts [78]. 

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