Heterogeneous coordination catalyst

Beside the structure of the monomer, also the type of catalyst used should play an important role in favouring the synthesis of either prevailingly (R) and (S) separable polymers or random (R) (S) copolymers from racemic monomers until now all the separable polymers have been produced by heterogeneous coordination catalysts. 

DMC catalysts are real heterogeneous coordinative catalysts [2, 51, 52]. At the end of polymerisation, the catalyst is dispersed in the liquid polyether polyols in the form of small solid particles of around 200 nm (0.2 im) diameter. By dilution with w-hexane and filtration, it is possible to achieve a quantitative removal of the DMC catalyst [51, 52]. 

Several models have been proposed to describe intraparticle heat and mass transfer with heterogeneous coordination catalysts [114], but the most commonly accepted is the multigrain model (MGM) [115-126], In the MGM, the... 

Polymerization of ethylene is often carried out in gas-phase using a heterogeneous coordination catalyst [22]. Polymer is formed on the active sites of the catalyst forming an expanding catalyst-polymer particle. The gaseous monomer diffuses through the pores of the particle and through the polymer to reach the active sites. 

Fig. 8.31. Particle growth and fragmentation for polymerization with heterogeneous coordination catalysts.

The next major commodity plastic worth discussing is polypropylene. Polypropylene is a thermoplastic, crystalline resin. Its production technology is based on Ziegler s discovery in 1953 of metal alkyl-transition metal halide olefin polymerization catalysts. These are heterogeneous coordination systems that produce resin by stereo specific polymerization of propylene. Stereoregular polymers characteristically have monomeric units arranged in orderly periodic steric configuration. 

Polystyrene (PS) is the fourth big-volume thermoplastic. Styrene can be polymerized alone or copolymerized with other monomers. It can be polymerized by free radical initiators or using coordination catalysts. Recent work using group 4 metallocene combined with methylalumi-noxane produce stereoregular polymer. When homogeneous titanium catalyst is used, the polymer was predominantly syndiotactic. The heterogeneous titanium catalyst gave predominantly the isotactic. Copolymers with butadiene in a ratio of approximately 1 3 produces SBR, the most important synthetic rubber. 

Activities of a-olefins in insertion polymerisation with coordination catalysts are generally related to the monomer structure both electronic and steric factors influence the activity of a-olefins in stereospecific polymerisation, but the steric factor primarily influences the rate of polymerisation, which has been especially shown for isospecific polymerisation with heterogeneous catalysts [46, 250],... 

Subsequent investigations revealed that, in principle, styrene undergoes isospecific polymerisation in the presence of heterogeneous Ziegler Natta catalysts [1-4], Although polystyrene of isotactic structure was also prepared with the use of homogeneous nickel-based coordination catalysts, it appeared to be of low molecular weight [22,23]. 

An jj (S) equilibrium (equation 6) is observed in the benzo[fc]thiophene (BT) complexes Cp (CO)2Re(BT), where Cp is Cp or Cp. As for selenophene, the Cp ligand favors j -BT, while Cp favors the rj (S) form it should be noted that 2-MeBT and 3-MeBT form only the jj (S) complexes. The formation of the r] form from the is important for understanding the first step in the HDS of BT, which gives dihydrobenzothiophene (equation 7). This alkene hydrogenation reaction is catalyzed by homogeneous catalysts and may occur similarly on heterogeneous HDS catalysts. While there is no evidence that there is an r] (S) equilibrium in thiophene complexes, both thiophene species may exist on a catalyst surface. Low metal oxidation states would favor r] coordination, which could lead to the initially observed alkene hydrogenation products. 

---