Stereospecifity polybutadienes

Cisdene . [Am. Syn. Rubber] Stereospecific polybutadiene used in mixtures with SBR or NR to enhance properties. 

To a 2-liter, round-bottom, glass flask equipped with a reflux condenser, drying tube, dropping tunnel, thermometer, and stirrer, is added 300 ml of tert-butyl alcohol. While stirring, lOgm (0.25 mole) of potassium metal (as small pieces) is slowly added at a rate to keep the reaction under control. The excess alcohol is removed under reduced pressure and to the residual cake of potassium fert-butoxide is added 300 ml of dry n-pentane. Then a solution of 60 gm of stereospecific polybutadiene rubber in 800 ml cyclohexane is added. The resulting mixture is cooled to 0°C while 63 gm (0.25 mole) of bromoform is added dropwise and when complete the temperature is allowed to rise to 25°C. Then 2,6-di-/err-butyl-4-methyl phenol (5 ppm of rubber product) is added and then the mixture poured into methanol to precipitate the product. The solid is filtered, washed with alcohol, water, aleohol, and then dried at 50°C under reduced pressure. The produet on analyses showed 2 wt% of chemically bound bromine. 

Catalysts. Iodine and its compounds ate very active catalysts for many reactions (133). The principal use is in the production of synthetic mbber via Ziegler-Natta catalysts systems. Also, iodine and certain iodides, eg, titanium tetraiodide [7720-83-4], are employed for producing stereospecific polymers, such as polybutadiene mbber (134) about 75% of the iodine consumed in catalysts is assumed to be used for polybutadiene and polyisoprene polymeri2a tion (66) (see RUBBER CHEMICALS). Hydrogen iodide is used as a catalyst in the manufacture of acetic acid from methanol (66). A 99% yield as acetic acid has been reported. In the heat stabiH2ation of nylon suitable for tire cordage, iodine is used in a system involving copper acetate or borate, and potassium iodide (66) (see Tire cords). 

The most spectacular case of products arising from a catalyst invention is that of the stereospecific hydrocarbon polymers made possible by the Ziegler-Natta work on aluminum alkyl/transition metal halide combinations around 1950. Until these catalysts existed, polypropylene, polyiso-prene, and cis-polybutadiene could not be made, and linear polyethylene could not be made cheaply. For each of these products, very large investments were needed in big plants and in market development before they were competitive with the established, big thermoplastics and rubbers. Entrance fees ran into tens of millions of dollars. 

Polymerised butadiene, made by the use of stereospecific catalysts, cis-1,4-Polybutadiene is widely used in tyre tread compounds. An inherently low temperature and low loss polymer. Polycarbonates... 

Normal rhombic sulphur has differing degrees of solubility in the different rubber types. In NR and SBR the required proportion for crosslinking dissolves relatively rapidly at room temperature. In stereospecific rubbers such as polybutadiene and nitrile it does not solubilise so readily. As one would expect, the solubility of the sulphur within the rubber increases with temperature increase. 

The trans/cis ratio of the product must, therefore, be determined at an earlier reaction stage and most probably by the ratio of species 27a and 27b. Steric or electronic factors affecting this ratio will influence the trans/cis ratio of the resulting 1,4-hexadiene. The phosphine and the cocatalyst effect on the stereoselectivity can thus be interpreted in terms of their influence on the mode of butadiene coordination. Some earlier work on the stereospecific synthesis of polybutadiene by Ni catalyst can be adopted to explain the effect observed here, because the intermediates that control the stereospecificity of the polymerization should be essen-... 

Stereospecific Polymerization of Butadiene with Ziegler-Natta-Catalysts Preparation of c/s-1,4-Polybutadiene... 

These efforts coupled with the much earlier work on sodium and lithium initiated polymerizations led to an appreciation of the stereospecificity of the alkyllithium initiators for diene polymerization both industrially and academically. Polymerization of isoprene to a high cis polyisoprene with butyllithium is well known and the details have been well documented 2 Control over polybutadiene structure has also been demonstrated. This report attempts to survey the unique features of anionic polymerization with an emphasis on the chemistry and its commercial applications and is not intended as a comprehensive review. 

Crystallization of oriented chains is, in various respects, important for the polymer properties. The fact has been mentioned before, that stereospecific rubbers such as cis-1,4 polybutadiene can crystallize when under strain. The spontaneously formed crystals contribute strongly to the strength of the vulcanizate. A vulcanized natural rubber has, without carbon black reinforcement, a tensile strength of about 40 MPa, whereas an unreinforced SBR breaks at about 3 MPa. (With SBR a high tensile strength can only be reached with carbon black.)... 

However, no method of polymerisation known before 1954 allowed one to obtain polymers with a high regularity of structure from the most common conjugated dienes. A true breakthrough in the development of conjugated diene rubbers took place after the discovery of stereospecific polymerisation with transition metal-based coordination catalysts. From the late 1950s, a rapid development of industrial production of solution types of polybutadiene by means of polymerisation with Ziegler-Natta catalysts was observed. 

The activity and stereospecificity of rc-allylic catalysts for conjugated diene polymerisation depend both on the kind of metal and on the nature of the ligand attached to this metal. For instance, Cr(All)3 [137] and Co(f/3-C8Hi3)(C4H6)-CS2 [103] catalysts yield 1,2-polybutadiene, while Cr (A11)2C1 [120], Cr(All)2I [134] and U(A11)3C1 [147] catalysts produce cis-1,4-polybutadiene, but an Nd(All)3.DOX catalyst gives trans-1,4-polybutadiene [146] and a Co(fj3-C4H7)3—I2 catalyst yields eb-c/.v-l, 4/1,2-poly butadiene [137,145] (Table 5.5). 

Catalysts based on 7r-allylic derivatives of transition metals supported on alumina, silica or silica-alumina gels exhibit generally enhanced activity by comparison with their unsupported counterparts, while the stereospecificity depends on the nature of the catalyst carrier. For instance, Cr(All)3, which predominantly produces 1,2-polybutadiene [137], becomes a stereospecific catalyst for the formation of trans- 1,4-polybutadiene when supported on silica or silica-alumina gel and for the formation of cis- 1,4-polybutadiene when supported on alumina [148]. However, an increase in the content of cis-1,4 monomeric units in polybutadiene with increasing silica concentration in n-allylnickel-alumina-silica catalysts has been observed [149]. 

Some bimetallic catalysts of various stereospecificity are based on transition metal carbonyls and metal halides for instance, Ni(CO)4—VCI4 and Ni(CO)4—WCh catalysts produce cis- 1,4-polybutadiene, but the Co2(CO)8 —M0CI5 catalyst yields 1,2-polybutadiene [35]. 

The reactions presented in scheme (10) also account for effects exerted by the addition of Lewis bases or acids (as well as other electron donors and acceptors) to the polymerisation system on the microstructure of the polymers formed. As shown in Tables 5.4 and 5.5, some catalysts that are highly stereospecific for the formation of cis- 1,4-polybutadiene yield trans- 1,4-poly butadiene (or eb-m-1,At trans-1,4-polybutadiene) after the addition of a Lewis base or other electron donor to the catalyst system. A plausible explanation of the observed phenomena is that the added component occupies a coordination site at the transition metal, thus forcing the incoming monomer molecule to coordinate as an s-trans-rf ligand. When the additional catalyst component has a basicity comparable with that of the monomer, a competitive monomer/ Lewis base (electron donor) coordination takes place, as shown below [7] ... 

Again in polybutadiene, one finds sodium, potassium, rubidium and cesium giving polybutadienes fairly similar in structure varying from 35% 1,4 for sodium to 55% 1,4 for potassium and the 1,4 fraction varying from 71 to 85% trans. The trans-1,4 content is significantly lower than was observed in the case of polyisoprene. Again lithium is far removed from the other alkali metals, but in this instance the percentage 1,4 is now 85%, and of this 1,4 fraction only 40% is cis. The extreme stereospecificity which one finds in the isoprene case is not so pronounced with butadiene. 

Polymerization was carried out in benzene in the presence of bis-(7r-allylnickel halides). The latter were prepared from nickel carbonyl and allyl halide (allyl bromide, crotyl chloride, bromide, or iodide etc.). The results of the polymerization runs are reported in Table I. The data indicate that all of the bis(7r-allylnickel halides) initiate by themselves the stereospecific butadiene polymerization yielding a polymer with 97-98% 1,4-units. The cis-l,4/trans-l,4 ratio depends on the halide in the dimeric r-allylnickel halide but not on the nature of allylic ligand. The case of bis(7r-crotylnickel halides) shows the effect of halide on microstructure, for whereas (C4H7NiCl)2 initiates cis- 1,4-polybutadiene formation, trans-1,4 polymers are produced by (C4H7NiI)2. The reactivity increase in the series Cl < Br < I. 

Alcock and coworkers studied the polymerization of butadiene (as well as of monoolefins, acetylene and aromatic olefins) trapped within the tunnel clathrate system of tris((9-phenylenedioxy)cyclotriphosphazene, induced by Co-y-radiation. The host was used in order to find if the concatenation and orientation of the monomer molecules under the steric forces generated within the host crystal lattice will lead to stereospecific polymerization. The clathrate was prepared by addition of liquid butadiene to the pure host at low temperature. The irradiation was conducted at low temperatures. Irradiation of pure butadiene (unclathrated bulk monomer) leads to formation of a mixture of three addition products f,2-adduct, cis- and trons-f,4-adducts. In contrast, the radiation-induced polymerization within the tunnel system of the host yielded almost pure trans-1,4-polybutadiene. A small percentage of f, 2-addition product was observed, but no evidence for the formation of c/s-f,4-adduct was found, confirming the earlier observation by Fin ter and Wegner. The average molecular weight was about 5000,... 

The catalysis of the stereospecific polymerization of conjugated dienes is of considerable interest from both the scientific and the industrial points of view [1,2]. From butadiene and isoprene, as the industrially most important 1,3-dienes, in comparison with the polymerization of olefins many more structurally different stereoregular polymers can be derived cf the structures of the stereoregular polybutadienes and polyisoprenes given in Scheme 1 [106]. 

Medium-c/5 lithium-polybutadiene was first developed by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in 1955 [86]. Solution polymerization using anionic catalysts is usually based on butyllithium. Alkyllithium initiation does not have the high stereospecificity of the coordination catalysts based on titanium, cobalt, nickel, or neodymium compounds. Polymerization in aliphatic hydrocarbon solvents such as hexane or cyclohexane yields a polymer of about 40 % cis, 50 % trans structure with 10 % 1,2-addition. However, there is no need for higher cis content because a completely amorphous structure is desired for mbber applications the glass transition temperature is determined by the vinyl content. The vinyl content of the polybutadiene can be increased up to 90 % by addition of small amounts of polar substances such as ethers. 

Isomerization during the course of the dichlorocarbene modification of polybutadienes is a potential concern. Isomerization is possible in both the unreacted butadiene portion and the chlorine-containing portion. Although the addition of dichlorocarbene to double bonds is know to be stereospecific and syn, (17) it is possible that small amounts of trans-substituted cyclopropyl groups might be present in the modified cis polymer. We saw no additional resonances suggestive of mixed stereochemistry of the cyclopropyl group in either the cis- or trans-adducts. The 13C... 

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