Graft polyolefins metallocenes

T. C. Chung, New utilities of metallocene catalysts and borane reagents in the functionalization and block/graft reactions of polyolefins, MetCon 95 Proceedings, USA, May 1995. 

The metallocene catalyst with cationic nature and spatially opened active site provides favorable condition for the incorporation of p-alkylstyrene (p-ms) to polyolefins. The p-ms groups can be easily metallated to produce "stable" polymeric anions for graft-from polymerization. With the coexist of anion-polymerizable monomers, we have prepared many graft copolymers, such as PE-g-PS, PE-g-PMMA, PE-g-PAN, PP-g-PS, PP-g-PB, PP-g-PI and PP-g-PMMA. 

The third advantage associated with metallocene catalysts is that the predominant mechanism for chain termination is by /3-hydride elimination. This produces a vinyl double bond at the end of each polymer chain. Further functionalization of the vinyl group by graft polymerization with maleic anhydride and other functional monomers is far more effective than is typical for polyolefins obtained by conventional catalysts. 

LRP is a powerful tool for the synthesis of complex polymer architectures as was shown above. However, in some cases it is desirable to combine structures that are hardly or not at all accessible via radical polymerization techniques. In such cases it may be beneficial to combine LRP with another polymerization mechanism. Many examples have been reported so far. A few examples will be listed here. Polystyrene-6-pol3risobutylene-6-polystyrene was synthesized via a combination of living cationic polymerization and ATRP (98). Polyolefin Graft Copolymers (qv) were synthesized by first polymerizing alkoxyamine-substituted olefins via metallocene catalysis, and subsequent polymerization of vinyl monomers via... 

Keywords Block copolymer Capacitor Crosslinked polypropylene Energy storage Functional polyolefin Graft copolymer Hydroxylated polypropylene Metallocene Reactive chain transfer agent Reactive comonomer... 

---