Ethene polymerization mechanism initiation mechanisms

Many questions remain about the initiation, propagation, and termination steps of the ethene polymerization mechanism. The most important models proposed to date are the Cossee model, which requires a vacant coordination site on the metal center in the position adjacent to the growing alkyl chain, where ethene is coordinated before insertion into the chain (628), and the Green-Rooney model, which requires the presence of a metal-carbene species and a vacant site where ethene is coordinated prior to insertion (629). 

The aim of this Section is to discuss the experimental methods, problems, and recent improvements in the determination of the exact nature of the precursor species Yi, Y2, Y3, etc. (i.e., the determination of the initiation mechanism for the ethene polymerization). Facing this topic, we must be aware that, besides the problems related to the determination of the Cr(II) structure (vide supra Section VI.A.2), the identification of the species formed during the initial stages of the reaction has been prevented so far for two other reasons (a) only a fraction of the Cr(II) sites are active in the polymerization under the usually adopted conditions (225), so that almost all the characterization techniques give information about the inactive majority Cr sites and (b) the active sites are characterized by a very high polymerization rate (high turnover frequency, TOF). It is thus clear that any experimental efforts devoted to the detection of the precursor and/or intermediate species must solve these two problems (vide infra Section VI.C). 

An example of radical polymerization is that of ethene in the presence of an organic peroxide at high pressures and temperatures. The reaction proceeds by a mechanism that, in its initial stages, resembles that of the radical addition to alkenes (Section 12-13). The peroxide initiators cleave into alkoxy radicals, which begin polymerization by addition to the double bond of ethene. The alkyl radical thus created attacks the double bond of another... 

Monomers with carbon-to-carbon double bonds typically undergo chain-reaction pol3nnerization. The net result is that the double bonds open up and monomer units add to growing chains. As with other chain reactions, the mechanism involves three characteristic steps initiation, propagation, and termination. Let us illustrate this mechanism for the formation of the polymer polyethylene from the monomer ethylene (ethene). The key to the polymerization reaction is the free-radical initiator. In reaction (27.16), an organic peroxide dissociates into two radicals. The radicals add to the double bonds of ethylene molecules to form radical intermediates that attack more ethylene molecules and form new... 

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