Polymerization Cossee model

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). 

Fig. 8-11 Mechanism for catalyst site control model of isoselective polymerization. After Cossee [1964] (by permission of Academic Press, New York and Elsevier, Oxford).

Most reaction models which describe the mechanism of diene polymerization by Nd catalysts have been adopted from models developed for the polymerization of ethylene and propylene by the use of Ti- and Ni-based catalysts systems. A monometallic insertion mechanism which accounts for many features of the polymerization of a-olefins has been put forward by Cossee and Arlman in 1964 [624-626]. Respective bimetallic mechanisms date back to Patat, Sinn, Natta and Mazzanti [627,628]. The most important and generally accepted mechanisms for the polymerization of dienes by Nd-based catalysts are discussed in the following. 

Natta postulated that for the stereospecific polymerization of propylene with Ziegler-Natta catalysts, chiral active sites are necessary he was not able to verify this hypothesis. However, the metallocene catalysts now provide evidence that chiral centers are the key to isotacticity. On the basis of the Cossee-Arlman mechanism, Pino et al. (164,165) proposed a model to explain the origin of stereoselectivity The metallocene forces the polymer chain into a particular arrangement, which in turn determines the stereochemistry of the approaching monomer. This model is supported by experimental observations of metallocene-catalyzed oligomerization. 

Problem 9.10 Based on the mechanism of Arlman and Cossee, derive a suitable expression for the rate of polymerization and predict the rate behavior that would be expected according to this rate model. 

To describe the kinetics of olefin polymerization with heterogeneous catalysts, kinetic models based on adsorption isotherm theories have been proposed [7-10], The most accepted two-step mechanism of ZN polymerization, proposed by Cossee [10-12], includes olefin coordination and migratory insertion of coordinated monomer into a metal-carbon bond of the growing polymer chain. 

Of these four, the majority of the research tends to support the transition metal-carbon center model, as the mechanistic scheme of choice. Using a homogeneous catalyst (Cp2TiEt2) as a model, Breslow and Newburg proposed that polymerization growth occurred at the Ti—C center. Somewhat later, Cossee extended this concept into a more elaborate mechanism for supported catalysts, which he substantiated with molecular orbital calculations (see Ref. 179, Chapt. 13). 

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