Polymerization process, metal catalysts

The importance of the cocatalyst in metal-catalyzed polymerization processes can be appreciated as follows. First, to form active catalysts, catalyst precursors must be transformed into active catalysts by an effective and appropriate activating species. Second, a successful activation process requires many special cocatalyst features for constant catalyst precursor and kinetic/thermodynamic considerations of the reaction. Finally, the cocatalyst, which becomes an anion after the activation process, is the vital part of a catalytically active cation—anion ion pair and may significantly influence polymerization characteristics and polymer properties. Scheme 1 depicts the aforementioned relationships between catalyst and cocatalyst in metal-catalyzed olefin polymerization systems. 

The use of fluidized beds for gas-phase polymerization started in 1968 with the UNIPOL process, which was developed by Union Carbide to make high-density polyethylene. This process has now been adapted to produce other grades of polyethylene as well as polypropylene and various copolymers. The fluid bed is composed of porous particles, which are aggregates of polymer containing fine grains of titanium, chromium, or other metal catalyst. Polymerization takes place at the polymer-catalyst interface, and the particles grow larger over a period of several hours. Some of the polymer is withdrawn continuously or at intervals to maintain the bed... 

The addition of reagents containing X-H bonds in which X is more electronegative than H typically lead to addition across the M-C bond in the direction opposite to the addition of silane or borane to the early metal catalysts. Polymerization of etiiylene with lanthanide catalysts in the presence of phosphines generates phosphine-terminated polymers (Scheme 22.12) - by a mechanism in which the alkyl chain is protonated, and a metal-phosphido complex is generated. This phosphido complex then inserts olefin to start the growth of a phosphine-functionalized polyolefin. Marks subsequently showed that a similar process can be conducted witii amines. In this case, the bulky dicyclohexylamine was needed to sufficiently retard the rate of protonation to allow chain growth. The steric bulk also makes the olefin insertion more favorable thermodynamically. 

The production of CPO is based on relatively inexpensive cycHc substances these must be derivatized, however, to meet the requirements of resistance to heat softening and suitabiUty for metallization. Metathesis polymerization is problem-prone, since relatively large amounts of catalyst (WCl, C2H AlCl2) must be removed by solvent extraction (216). In the process, the price of CPO, at small batches, is several times higher than that of BPA-PC. 

Other THF polymerization processes that have been disclosed in papers and patents, but which do not appear to be in commercial use in the 1990s, include catalysis by boron trifluoride complexes in combination with other cocatalysts (241—245), modified montmorrillonite clay (246—248) or modified metal oxide composites (249), rare-earth catalysts (250), triflate salts (164), and sulfuric acid or Aiming sulfuric acid with cocatalysts (237,251—255). 

When a mixture of alkenes 1 and 2 or an unsymmetrically substituted alkene 3 is treated with an appropriate transition-metal catalyst, a mixture of products (including fi/Z-isomers) from apparent interchange of alkylidene moieties is obtained by a process called alkene metathesis. With the development of new catalysts in recent years, alkene metathesis has become a useful synthetic method. Special synthetic applications are, for example, ring-closing metathesis (RCM) and ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROM) (see below). 

The previous sections show that certain ionic liquids, namely the chloroalumi-nate(III) ionic liquids, are capable of acting both as catalyst and as solvent for the polymerization of certain olefins, although in a somewhat uncontrolled manner, and that other ionic liquids, namely the non-chloroaluminate(III) ionic liquids, are capable of acting as solvents for free radical polymerization processes. In attempts to carry out polymerization reactions in a more controlled manner, several studies have used dissolved transition metal catalysts in ambient-temperature ionic liquids and have investigated the compatibility of the catalyst towards a range of polymerization systems. 

To accelerate the polymerization process, some water-soluble salts of heavy metals (Fe, Co, Ni, Pb) are added to the reaction system (0.01-1% with respect to the monomer mass). These additions facilitate the reaction heat removal and allow the reaction to be carried out at lower temperatures. To reduce the coagulate formation and deposits of polymers on the reactor walls, the additions of water-soluble salts (borates, phosphates, and silicates of alkali metals) are introduced into the reaction mixture. The residual monomer content in the emulsion can be decreased by hydrogenizing the double bond in the presence of catalysts (Raney Ni, and salts of Ru, Co, Fe, Pd, Pt, Ir, Ro, and Co on alumina). The same purpose can be achieved by adding amidase to the emulsion. 

In the process of radical polymerization a monomolecular short stop of the kinetic chain arises from the delocalization of the unpaired electron along the conjugated chain and from the competition of the developing polyconjugated system with the monomer for the delivery of rr-electrons to the nf-orbitals of a transition metal catalyst in the ionic coordination process. Such a deactivation of the active center may also be due to an interaction with the conjugated bonds of systems which have already been formed. 

At the present time the concept of catalytic (or ionic-coordination ) polymerization has been developed by investigating polymerization processes in the presence of transition metal compounds. The catalytic polymerization may be defined as a process in which the catalyst takes part in the formation of the transition complexes of elementary acts during the propagation reaction. 

The formation of the active metal-carbon bond as a result of the interaction of low-valent ions of the transition metal with olefin is the most intriguing step of the polymerization process by one-component catalysts. The possibility of the formation of the transition metal-carbon bond resulting from the reaction of titanium low-valent ions with ethylene is shown in Dzsabiev et al. (182) ... 

Polycondensation pol5mers, like polyesters or polyamides, are obtained by condensation reactions of monomers, which entail elimination of small molecules (e.g. water or a hydrogen halide), usually under acid/ base catalysis conditions. Polyolefins and polyacrylates are typical polyaddition products, which can be obtained by radical, ionic and transition metal catalyzed polymerization. The process usually requires an initiator (a radical precursor, a salt, electromagnetic radiation) or a catalyst (a transition metal). Cross-linked polyaddition pol5mers have been almost exclusively used so far as catalytic supports, in academic research, with few exceptions (for examples of metal catalysts on polyamides see Ref. [95-98]). 

The second general method, IMPR, for the preparation of polymer supported metal catalysts is much less popular. In spite of this, microencapsulation of palladium in a polyurea matrix, generated by interfacial polymerization of isocyanate oligomers in the presence of palladium acetate [128], proved to be very effective in the production of the EnCat catalysts (Scheme 3). In this case, the formation of the polymer matrix implies only hydrolysis-condensation processes, and is therefore much more compatible with the presence of a transition metal compound. That is why palladium(II) survives the microencapsulation reaction... 

All of the reactions described above use anionic alkyl metal complexes as stoichiometric reductants. Cationic zirconium catalyst 58 was shown to re-ductively cyclize a variety of 1,5-dienes to give both mono- and bicyclic silane products when H3SiPh was employed as the stoichiometric reductant (Scheme 10) [32]. Poor yields due to competing polymerization processes were observed when less substituted dienes were employed. It is likely that... 

The basic sol-gel reaction can be viewed as a two-step network-forming polymerization process. Initially a metal alkoxide (usually TEOS, Si(OCIl2CH )4) is hydrolyzed generating ethanol and several metal hydroxide species depending on the reaction conditions. These metal hydroxides then undergo a step-wise polycondensation forming a three-dimensional network in the process. The implication here is that the two reactions, hydrolysis and condensation, occur in succession this is not necessarily true (8.9). Depending on the type of catalyst and the experimental conditions used, these reactions typically occur simultaneously and in fact may show some reversibility. 

A final example of homogeneous catalysis is the use of metallocene catalyst systems in chain growth polymerization processes. The metallocene, which consists of a metal ion sandtviched between two unsaturated ring systems, is activated by a cocatalyst. The activated catalyst complexes with the monomer thereby reducing the reaction s energy of activation. This increases the rate of the reaction by up to three orders of magnitude. 

Structurally related complexes are also active initiators for the living polymerization of carbo-diimides (which are isoelectronic to isocyanates).1003 The proposed intermediate for this polymerization process is a metal amidinate (Scheme 29), and the model complex (349) has been reported to be a highly efficient catalyst, polymerizing 500 equivalents of di- -hexylcarbodiimide in less than 10 s. A more hydrolytically robust series of initiators has also been developed, based upon copper(I) and copper(II) amidinates.1004... 

The use of organic halide to reactivate a decayed catalyst has been known for other catalytic processes involving transition metal catalysts, especially in olefin polymerization reactions (18-21). 

Brookhart and coworkers [1] have recently developed Ni(II) and Pd(II) bis-imine based catalysts of the type (ArN=C(R)-C(R)=NAr)M-CH3+ (la of Figure 1) that are promising alternatives to both Ziegler-Natta systems and metallocene catalysts for olefin polymerization. Traditionally, such late metal catalysts are found to produce dimers or extremely low molecular weight oligomers due to the favorability of the P-elimination chain termination process [2],... 

The polymerization process is characterized by an average probability ratio of isomerization vs. insertion steps of 2.6. A closer look at the simulation results shows that for this catalyst the insertions practically occur only at the primary carbon, the insertion from the secondary carbon happen very rarely. To illustrate this point, the values of the probabilities of alternative events may be helpful. If the primary carbon is attached to the metal, the probabilities of the 1,2-insertion, 2,1-insertion and the isomerization (to secondary or tertiary carbon) are 0.700, 0.286, and 0.014, respectively. If the secondary carbon, neighboring with the two secondary carbon atoms is attached to the metal, the corresponding values are 0.002 (1, 2- ins.), 0.001 (2,1-ins.), and 0.499 (two equivalent isomerizations). And if the secondary carbon, neighboring with one primary C and one secondary C... 

Olefin metathesis (olefin disproportionation) is the reaction of two alkenes in which the redistribution of the olelinic bonds takes place with the aid of transition metal catalysts (Scheme 7.7). The reaction proceeds with an intermediate formation of a metallacyclobutene. This may either break down to provide two new olefins, or open up to generate a metal alkylidene species which -by multiple alkene insertion- may lead to formation of alkylidenes with a polymeric moiety [21]. Ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) is the reaction of cyclic olefins in which backbone-unsaturated polymers are obtained. The driving force of this process is obviously in the relief of the ring strain of the monomers. 

---