Syndiotactic dyad formation

Polymerization of propylene oxide-a-d was carried out by the EtZnNBu ZnEt catalyst in benzene solution in the presence of varying amounts of added water at 70° C, and was terminated after 7 days. The microstructure of the crude polymer was determined by the 1H-NMR method and the yields of amorphous and crystalline polymers were determined by a fractionation method (Fig. 16). When the amount of added water was increased up to 0.3 mole per mole of catalyst, the yield of crystalline polymer increased remarkably, whereas that of amorphous one remained nearly constant, and the isotactic dyad content (I) increased remarkably while syndiotactic one (S) remained almost constant. Thus, the striking parallel was observed between the yield of crystalline polymer and the isotactic dyad content, and between the yield of amorphous polymer and the syndiotactic dyad content. It is therefore concluded that water contributes more remarkably to the formation... 

An explanation for the preference for syndiotacticity during MMA polymerization was proposed by I suruta et al. I hey considered that the propagating radical should exist in one of two conformations and showed, with models, that attack on the less hindered side of the preferred conformation (where steric interactions between the substituent groups are minimized) would lead to formation of a syndiotactic dyad while similar attack on the less stable conformation would lead to an isotactic dyad,... 

Czv-Symmetric Catalysts. Syndiotactic polymers have been formed using metallocene catalysts where the polymer chain end controls the syndiospecificity of olefin insertion. Resconi has shown that Cp 2MCl2 (M = Zr. Hf) derived catalysts produce predominantly syndiotactic poly(l-butene) with an approximate 2 kcal/mol preference for syndiotactic versus isotactic dyad formation." At —20 °C. Cp 2HfCl2/MAO produces poly(l-butene) with 77% rr triads. Pellecchia had reported that the diimine-ligated nickel complex 30 forms moderately syndiotactic polypropylene at —78 °C when activated with MAO ([rr] = 0.80)." " Olefin insertion was shown to proceed by a 1.2-addition mechanism." in contrast to the related iron-based systems which insert propylene with 2.1-regiochemistry. ... 

Although the definitions of isotactic, syndiotactic, and atactic polymers according to International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) rules are well established in terms of succession of mesa (m) or racemic (r) dyads,12 the symbolism of (+) and (—) bonds allows the easy treatments of possible configurations in cases of any complexity.1 Moreover, the (+) or (—) character of the bonds in a polymer chain is strictly related to the accessibility of gauche+ or gauche conformations of the bonds and, therefore, to the formation of right-handed or left-handed helical conformations.1... 

An unambiguous stereochemical assignment of the alpha methyl absorptions is difficult to make. On the basis of the similarity of the observed spectra to the closely similar poly (alphamethylstyrene) ( , 10, Jl ), it is tempting to assign the upfield and downfield absorptions to syndiotactic and isotactic triads, respectively. This assignment would be supported by the 300 and 600 MHz 1h spectra of tetramer [14] that suggest predominant (>90%) formation of a racemic dyad. 

The difference in the apparent activation energies for the formation of syndiotactic and isotactic dyads can be estimated by the following relationship ... 

---