The Cocatalyst

The alkynyl ketones 840 can be prepared by the reaction of acyi chlorides with terminal alkynes, Cul in the presence of Et3N is the cocatalyst[719]. (1-Alkynyl)tributylstannanes are also used for the alkynyl ketone synthesis[720]. The a,. 3-alkynic dithio and thiono esters 842 can be prepared by the reaction of the corresponding acid chloride 841 with terminal alkynes[721,722]. 

C ) using AICI3 cocatalyzed with a small amount of water. The cocatalyst furnishes the protons needed for the cationic polymerization ... 

The ultimate purpose of mechanistic considerations is the understanding of the detailed reaction pathway. In this connection it is important to know the structure of the active catalyst and, closely connected with this, the function of the cocatalyst. Two possibilities for the action of the cocatalyst will be taken into consideration, namely, the change in the oxidation state of the transition metal and the creation of vacant sites. In the following, a few catalyst systems will be considered in more detail. 

The use of conventional electrochemical methods to study the effect of metal adatoms on the electrochemical oxidation of an organic adsorbate may be in some cases of limited value. Very often, in the potential region of interest the current due to the oxidation of an organic residue is masked by faradaic or capacitive responses of the cocatalyst itself. The use of on-line mass spectroscopy overcomes this problem by allowing the observation of the mass signal-potential response for the C02 produced during the oxidation of the adsorbed organic residue. 

In order to enhance the activity of coordination catalysts we typically add a cocatalyst. The cocatalyst works synergistically with the catalyst to allow us to tailor the tacticity and molecular weight of the product while also enhancing the rate of the reaction. An example of a commercially used cocatalyst is methylaluminoxane used in conjunction with metallocene catalysts. 

The ethylene polymerization behavior of FI catalysts has been described in previous sections. It is often observed that the cocatalyst that is employed has an influence on the catalytic behavior of a transition metal-based olefin polymerization catalyst. FI catalysts can exhibit unique catalytic behavior depending on the cocatalyst that is used for polymerization. 

The key to highly active metallocene catalysts is the use of cocatalysts. In an activation step, the cocatalyst creates out of the metallocene a polymerization-active species. At first, methylaluminoxane (MAO) was usually used to activate metallocenes. Nowadays an alternative activation via borane and borate is becoming more and more important [20, 24, 25]. 

Therefore, the cocatalyst is expended by the building of Hf-CH3- and A1-CH2-Al-units and has to be used in a big overage to assure a high polymerization activity. 

The authors conducted a similar investigation of precatalysts 7 and 11 using TiBA and trityl tetrakis(pentafluorophenyl)borate as the cocatalyst. They concluded that this material contained no fraction that could be characterized as blocky. It was therefore proposed that reversible chain transfer occurred only with MAO or TMA and not with TiBA. This stands in contrast to the work of Chien et al. [20] and Przybyla and Fink [22] (vida supra), who claim reversible chain transfer with TiBA in similar catalyst systems. Lieber and Brintzinger also investigated a mixture of isospecific 11 and syndiospecific 12 in attempts to prepare iPP/sPP block copolymers. Extraction of such similar polymers was acknowledged to be difficult and even preparative temperature rising elution fractionation (TREF) [26, 27] was only partially successful. 

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-... 

In the polymerization of butadiene, Teyssie (52-54) has shown that certain electron donors, such as alcohols or phosphines, can convert tt-allylnickel chloride from a catalyst which forms c/j-polybutadiene to one which produces frans-polybutadiene. These ligands presumably block a site on the nickel atom, forcing the butadiene to coordinate by only one double bond. While alcohols cannot be added directly to the hexadiene catalyst (as they deactivate the alkylaluminum cocatalysts), incorporation of the oxygen atom on the cocatalyst places it in an ideal position to coordinate with the nickel. The observed rate reduction (52) when the cri-polybutadiene catalyst is converted into a fra/w-polybutadiene catalyst is also consistent with the observed results in the 1,4-hexadiene synthesis. 

These are a special type of coordination catalysts, made up two components. The two components are generally referred to as the catalyst and the cocatalyst. 

The catalyst component consists of halides of IV-VIII group elements having transition valence and the cocatalysts are organometallic compounds like alkyls, aryls and hydrides of group I-IV metals. Although there are hundreds of such catalyst cocatalyst systems listed in table below. Systems based on the organoaluminium compounds such as triethyl aluminium (AlEt3) or diethyl aluminium chloride... 

Isobutene is not polymerised by metal halides unless an ionogenic substance, the cocatalyst, is present [9,18,22-23]. The patent literature contains a great many combinations of a metal halide and a co-catalyst (often called promoter, especially in American patents), most of which are substances which can combine with the metal halide to form a protonic acid. Almost all the co-catalysts which have been studied in any detail belong to this class (see Table 2). 

Co-catalysts other than water. Trichloro- and monochloro-acetic acids, when used as cocatalysts, induced instantaneous polymerisation at -140°. With the following co-catalysts the rate of polymerisation at -78° decreased in the order acetic acid > nitroethane > nitromethane > phenol > water [75a]. Since this is also the sequence of the acid dissociation constants of these substances in water, it appears that the catalytic activity , as shown by the rate of polymerisation, is correlated with the acidity of the cocatalyst in aqueous solution. Flowever, there are two reasons for questioning the validity of this correlation. 

The second reason is that Satchell [78] has shown that in the protonation of m-xylene by catalysts composed of stannic chloride and acetic acid or the three chloroacetic acids as co-catalysts, the rate of reaction is inversely related to the aqueous acidity of these acids. Satchell rightly points out that, since the polymerisations are complicated reactions the rates of which are also affected by the terminating efficiency of the anion derived from the co-catalyst, no valid conclusions can be drawn from such studies about catalytic efficiency in any fundamental sense. He interprets the order of effectiveness of the cocatalysts in terms of the stability of the complexes which they form with the metal halide. 

The experimental evidence which has accumulated in recent years shows that in every system which has been rigorously investigated the polymerization of olefins by metal halides depends upon the presence of some third substance, the co-catalyst [2-8]. The function of the cocatalyst is to provide the ions which start the polymerization proper, by forming an ionogenic complex with the metal halide. In most systems the metal halide is not consumed in the course of the reaction, so that the term catalyst in its classical sense may be retained in this respect. Exceptions to this are some polymerizations involving aluminum halides in the polymerization of propene [9], and possibly of styrene and a-methyl styrene [10], these catalysts may be inactivated by the formation of stable complexes. In other cases, such as the... 

Olefins can only be polymerized by metal halides if a third substance, the co-catalyst, is present. The function of this is to provide the cation which starts the carbonium ion chain reaction. In most systems the catalyst is not used up, but at any rate part of the cocatalyst molecule is necessarily incorporated in the polymer. Whereas the initiation and propagation of cationic polymerizations are now fairly well understood, termination and transfer reactions are still obscure. A distinction is made between true kinetic termination reactions in which the propagating ion is destroyed, and transfer reactions in which only the molecular chain is broken off. It is shown that the kinetic termination may take place by several different types of reaction, and that in some systems there is no termination at all. Since the molecular weight is generally quite low, transfer must be dominant. According to the circumstances many different types of transfer are possible, including proton transfer, hydride ion transfer, and transfer reactions involving monomer, catalyst, or solvent. 

Wang s approach for the synthesis of enyne-allenes focused on ene-allenyl iodide 45 (Scheme 14.12) [24]. Palladium-catalyzed Sonogashira reaction of 45 with terminal alkynes 46 (R= Ph or CH2OH) proceeded smoothly under mild reaction conditions in the presence of the cocatalyst cuprous iodide and n-butylamine. The initially formed enyne-allene 47b with substituent R= CH2OH cyclized spontaneously to the corresponding a-methylstyrene derivative 48. 

Figure 8.6 Main step showing the role of the cocatalyst in the iridium-catalyzed methanol carbonylation reaction.

Although the first application of NHCs as ligands for the metathesis reaction were reported in 1978 with [(NHC)Mo(CO)4] as catalyst and EtAlCl2 as the cocatalyst, the breakthrough for these ligands in this reaction was achieved only recently... 

Molecular weight is regulated to some degree by control of the chain transfer with monomer and with the cocatalyst, plus internal hydride transfer. However, hydrogen is added in the commercial processes to terminate the reaction because many systems tend to form longer chains beyond the acceptable balance between desired processing conditions and chain size. 

Optimized reaction conditions call for the use of Wilkinson s catalyst in conjunction with the organocatalyst 2-amino-3-picoline (60) and a Br0nsted add. Jun and coworkers have demonstrated the effectiveness of this catalyst mixture for a number of reactions induding hydroacylation and C—H bond fundionalization [25]. Whereas, in most cases, the Lewis basic pyridyl nitrogen of the cocatalyst ads to dired the insertion of rhodium into a bond of interest, in this case the opposite is true - the pyridyl nitrogen direds the attack of cocatalyst onto an organorhodium spedes (Scheme 9.11). Hydroamination of the vinylidene complex 61 by 3-amino-2-picoline gives the chelated amino-carbene complex 62, which is in equilibrium with a-bound hydrido-rhodium tautomers 63 and 64. 

In both the mechanisms the polymer chain grows from the catalyst surface by successive insertion reactions of the complexed monomer, the R group originally present in the cocatalyst ending up as the terminal group of the chain. 

Reactions of the same carbonyl ylide intermediate with aldehydes are even more fruitful. The Rh2(OAc)2 catalyzed reaction proceeds at room temperature in the presence of 2 mol% of the catalyst, but the diastereoselectivity is disappointingly low (endo/exo = 49 51, Scheme 11.56). However, when 10 mol% of the cocatalyst Yb(OTf)3 is added, the reaction becomes highly exo-selective (endo/ exo = 3 97) (198). Suga has extended this Lewis acid catalyzed carbonyl ylide cycloaddition reaction to catalyzed asymmetric versions. The chiral cocatalyst employed is ytterbium(III) tris(5)-1,1 -binaphthyl-2,2 -diyl phosphonate, Yb[(S) BNP]3 (10 mol%). In the reaction of methyl o-(diazoacetyl)benzoate with benzyloxyacetaldehyde in the presence of Rh2(OAc)2 (2 mol%) at room temperature with the chiral Yb catalyst, the diastereoselectivity is low (endo/exo = 57 43) and the enantiopurity of the endo-cycloadduct is 52% ee. 

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