Transition metal catalysts, butadiene polymerization

Polybutadiene and polyisoprene are produced and used mainly as synthetic rubber on an industrial scale by using transition metal catalysts, especially titanium- and nickel-based ones. By contrast, only minor attention has been paid to the palladium-catalyzed polymerization of butadiene. A mixture of 1,2-polybutadiene and trans- and c/s-l, 4-polybutadiene was obtained by using PdCl2 as a catalyst (7, 2). 

Transition Metal Catalyst Systems for Polymerizing Butadiene and Isoprene... 

The f-transition metal catalysts were first described by von Dohlen [98] in 1963, Tse-chuan [99] in 1964 and later by Throckmorton [100]. In the 1980s Bayer [14] and Enichem [101] developed manufacturing processes based on neodymium catalysts. The catalyst system consists of three components [102] a carboxylate of a rare earth metal, an alkylaluminum and a Lewis acid containing a halide. A typical catalyst system is of the form neodymium(III) neodecanoate/diisobutylaluminum hydride/butyl chloride [103]. Neodymium(III) neodecanoate has the advantage of very high solubility in the nonpolar solvents used for polymerization. The molar ratio Al/Nd/Cl = 20 1 3. Per 100 g of butadiene, 0.13 mmol neodymium(III) neodecanoate is used. With respect to the monomer concentration, the kinetics are those of a first-order reaction. 

Polymerization of cis, cis-1,4-dideuterio-l, 3-butadiene by several transition metal catalysts has been studied. The existence of non-stereo-specific bond forming events is postulated to signal the involvement of allyl isomerization in the polymerization mechanism. Trans-1,4-polymers are accompanied by complete scrambling of deuterium stereochemistry, contrasting with a more specific process to form cis polymers. Allyl isomerization is thus implicated as a key event in the formation of trans, but not cis, polymer. 

Most unsaturated substances such as alkenes, alkynes, aldehydes, acrylonitrile, epoxides, isocyanates, etc., can be converted into polymeric materials of some sort—either very high polymers, or low-molecular-weight polymers, or oligomers such as linear or cyclic dimers, trimers, etc. In addition, copolymerization of several components, e.g., styrene-butadiene-dicyclo-pentadiene, is very important in the synthesis of rubbers. Not all such polymerizations, of course, require transition-metal catalysts and we consider here only a few examples that do. The most important is Ziegler-Natta polymerization of ethylene and propene. 

Acyclic diene metathesis (ADMET) [75] is the process by which a transition metal catalyst leads to a stepwise condensation polymerization of diene monomers, characterized by loss of gaseous ethylene and the production of linear polyolefins containing regular unsaturations along the polymer backbone (Scheme 1.8). In fact, many of the polymeric structures accessible by ADMET can be made by alternate mechanisms (e.g., 1,4-polybutadiene made by ADMET polymerization of 1,6-hexadiene is more commonly made by the anionic polymerization of 1,4-butadiene). 

Conjugated dienes are among the most significant building blocks both in laboratories and in the chemical industry [1], Especially, 1,3-butadiene and isoprene are key feedstocks for the manufacture of polymers and fine chemicals. Since the discovery of the Ziegler-Natta catalyst for the polymerizations of ethylene and propylene, the powerful features of transition metal catalysis has been widely recognized, and studies in this field have been pursued very actively [2-7]. 

Many recent publications have described the stereospecific polymerization of dienes by ir-allyl compounds derived from Cr, Nb, Ni, etc. Of particular interest is the work of Durand, Dawans, Teyssie who have shown that ir-allyl nickel catalysts (XXI) in the presence of certain additives polymerize butadiene stereospecifically (87, 38). The active center results from reaction of acidic additives with the transition metal. 

As to the first route, we started in 1969 (1) in investigating unconventional transition metal complexes of the 5 and 4f block elements of periodic table, e.g., actinides and lanthanides as catalysts for the polymerization of dienes (butadiene and isoprene) with an extremely high cis content. Even a small increase of cistacticity in the vicinity of 100% has an important effect on crystallization and consequently on elastomer processability and properties (2). The f-block elements have unique electronic and stereochemical characteristics and give the possibility of a participation of the f-electrons in the metal ligand bond. 

Poly(l,3-butadiene)s with high 1,4-ds contents are valuable materials that have a wide range of applications as synthetic rubbers. A variety of transition metal-based catalysts have been investigated so far for the polymerization of... 

The titanium trichloride-diethylaluminum chloride catalyst converted butadiene to the cis-, trans,-trans-cyclododecatriene. Professor Wilke and co-workers found that the particular structure is influenced by coordination during cyclization between the transition metal and the growing diene molecules. Analysis of the influence of the ionicity of the catalyst shows effects on the oxidation and reduction of the alkyls and on the steric control in the polymerization. The lower valence of titanium is oxidized by one butadiene molecule to produce only a cis-butadienyl-titanium. Then the cationic chain propagation adds two trans-butadienyl units until the stereochemistry of the cis, trans, trans structure facilitates coupling on the dialkyl of the titanium and regeneration of the reduced state of titanium (Equation 14). 

Slcreospecific solution polymerization has been emphasized since the discovery of the complex coordination catalyses that yield polymers or butadiene and isoprene having highly ordered microstructures. The catalysts used are usually mixtures of organometallic and transition metal compounds. An example of one of these polymers is cis- 1.4-polybutadiene. 

Otsuka et al. (110, 112) studied the polymerization of butadiene in the presence of an aged Co2(CO)8/2 MoC15 catalyst. The product obtained was predominantly an atactic poly(l,2-butadiene), the 1,2-structure being favored by low reaction temperature (e.g., at 40° C, 97% 1,2 at 30° C, > 99% 1,2). Similar experiments with a Ni(CO)4/MoCl5 catalyst yielded a polymer with 85% cis- 1,4-structure. The results of Otsuka et al. have been confirmed by Babitski and co-workers (8), who studied the polymerization of butadiene by a large number of binary catalysts, based on transition metal halide, transition metal carbonyl combinations. These systems are of interest as further examples of alkyl-free coordination polymerization catalysts for dienes (9, 15a, 109). Little is known of the origins of stereospecificity of these reactions. 

For instance, in the field of elastomers, alkyllithium catalyst systems are used commercially for producing butadiene homopolymers and copolymers and, to a somewhat lesser extent, polyisoprene. Another class of important, industrial polymerization systems consists of those catalyzed by alkylaluminum compounds and various compounds of transition metals used as cocatalysts. The symposium papers reported several variations of these polymerization systems in which cocatalysts are titanium halides for isoprene or propylene and cobalt salts for butadiene. The stereospecificity and mechanism of polymerization with these monomers were compared using the above cocatalysts as well as vanadium trichloride. Also included is the application of Ziegler-Natta catalysts to the rather novel polymerization of 1,3-pentadiene to polymeric cis-1,4 stereoisomers which have potential interest as elastomers. 

The various regular polymers that can be produced by polymerization of butadiene and isoprene are summarized in reactions (4-3) and (4-4). In addition to the structures shown in these reactions, it should be remembered that 1, 4 polymerization can incorporate the monomer with cis or trans geometry at the double bond and that the carbon atom that carries the vinyl substituent is chiral in 1,2 and 3,4 polymers. It is therefore possible to have isotactic or syndiotactic polybutadiene or polyisoprene in the latter cases. Further, these various monomer residues can alt appear in the same polymer molecule in regular or random sequence. It is remarkable that all these conceivable polymers can be synthesized with the use of suitable catalysts comprising transition metal compounds and appropriate ligands. 

In addition to the binary catalysts from transition metal compounds and metal alkyls there 2ire an increasing number which are clearly of the same general type but which have very different structures. Several of these are crystalline in character, and have been subjected to an activation process which gives rise to lattice defects and catalytic activity. Thus, nickel and cobalt chlorides, which untreated are not catalysts, lose chlorine on irradiation and become active for the polymerization of butadiene to high cis 1,4-polymer [59]. Titanium dichloride, likewise not a catalyst, is transformed into an active catalyst (the activity of which is proportional to the Ti content) for the polymerization of ethylene [60]. In these the active sites evidently react with monomer to form organo-transition metal compounds which coordinate further monomer and initiate polymerization. 

In coordination polymerization it is generally accepted that the monomer forms a 7r-complex with the transition metal prior to insertion into the growing chain. In general these complexes are insufficiently stable to be isolated although complexes of allene [69] and butadiene [70] have been reported. With allene the complex was formed prior to polymerization with soluble nickel catalysts, and cis coordinated butadiene forms part of the cobalt complex, CoCj 2H19, which is a dimerization cateilyst. 

The polymerization of butadiene and isoprene with an organometallic compound-transition metal compound Ziegler-Natta type catalyst can lead to polymers wdth a microstructure which is all cis-1,4-, trans l,4-, isotatic 1,2- (or 3,4-), syndiotactic 1,2- (or 3,4-), or a combination of two or more of these structural imits. The polymer microstructure may be dependent upon the ratio of the catalyst components, the temperature, and the reaction medium. 

Development of the elucidation of the catalytic reaction mechanism and the structure-reactivity relationships proceeded much more slowly. By the mid-1960s Wilke [17], Porri [18], and Dolgoplosk [19] had already shown that allyl-transition metal complexes can catalyze the butadiene polymerization stereoselectively and quite probably represent the real catalysts. In particular the allylnickel(II) complexes [Ni(C3Hs)X]2 (X = I [20], CF3CO2 [21]) and more recently the cationic complexes [Ni(C3H5)L2]PFe, with L = P(OPh)3, etc. [22, 23], were also used to explore the catalytic reaction mechanism. 

Lanthanides, which are d-electron deficient metals similar to early transition metals such as Ti and Zr, polymerize ethylene and acrylic esters. Although studies of coordination polymerization of 1,3-butadiene catalyzed by lanthanide compounds started as early as 1964 by discovery of the Ce catalysts... 

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