Heterogeneous catalysts, site-controlled

The polymerization of ethylene was carried out in an identical way with these heterogeneous catalysts as with the homogeneous systems. Typical results are given in Table XII and show that the Si-0 ligand enhances the activity of the transition metal site for polymerization. Some of the higher activities are minimum values since the concentration of ethylene in the diluent is well below equilibrium concentrations and with these conditions the process is diffusion controlled. 

Section 3 will deal with catalytic systems whose stereospecificity is mainly controlled by the chirality of the environment of the transition metal, independently of the possible chirality of the growing chain (chiral site stereocontrol). In particular, in Section 3.1 the chirality and stereospecificity of homogeneous catalytic systems based on metallocenes of different symmetries and in different experimental conditions will be reviewed. In Section 3.2 the chirality of model catalytic sites, which have been supposed for isospecific first-generation TiCl3-based and high-yield MgC -supported catalysts, is described. In Section 3.3 we will present a comparison between model catalytic sites proposed for heterogeneous and homogeneous stereospecific site-controlled catalysts. 

Various works has pointed out the role of the nanostructure of the catalysts in their design.18-26 There is a general agreement that the nanostructure of the oxide particles is a key to control the reactivity and selectivity. Several papers have discussed the features and properties of nanostructured catalysts and oxides,27-41 but often the concept of nanostructure is not clearly defined. A heterogeneous catalyst should be optimized on a multiscale level, e.g. from the molecular level to the nano, micro- and meso-scale level.42 Therefore, not only the active site itself (molecular level) is relevant, but also the environment around the active site which orients or assist the coordination of the reactants, may induce sterical constrains on the transition state, and affect the short-range transport effects (nano-scale level).42 The catalytic surface process is in series with the transport of the reactants and the back-diffusion of the products which should be concerted with the catalytic transformation. Heat... 

Olefin polymerization using heterogeneous catalysts is a very important reaction and stereochemical aspects have been studied extensively. For a review on this topic see Pino et al. [9], Briefly, the origin of stereoregularity in polyolefins (47) is explained by the chiral nature of the acdve site during polymerization. If the absolute configuration of the first intermediate can be controlled by chiral premodification then we should obtain a non-racemic mixture of R - and "S"-chains. This has indeed been observed e.g. with catalyst M4 for the polymerization (partial kinetic resolution) of racemic 3,7-dimethyl-l-octene (ee 37%) and also for the racemic monomer 46 using Cd-tartate M5. 

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