Zirconium aluminum hydride derivative

There has been no recent comprehensive review of this area, although a book on the organometallic chemistry of titanium, zirconium, and hafnium deals, in part, with some of the hydride derivatives (1). In the present review, the first part of the discussion reflects the fact that much of the early work on organotitanium hydrides was, often unknowingly at the time, interwoven with attempts to prepare titanocene, Cp2Ti (Cp = tj3-C5H5). Subsequent sections deal with similar compounds containing an additional metal (e.g., aluminum), miscellaneous titanium hydride compounds, and a summary of the main properties of the above species. 

Ziegler-Naita caialysts consist of a combination of alkyls or hydrides of Group I-III metals with salts of the Group IV-VHI metals. The most generally efficient catalyst combinations are those in which an aluminum alkyl derivative is interacted with titanium, vanadium, chromium or zirconium salts. The most important application of these catalysts is in the polymerization of olefins and conjugated dienes. Not every catalyst combination is equally effective in such polymerizations. As a general rule, Ziegler-Natta combinations that will polymerize 1-olefins will also polymerize ethylene, but the reverse is not true. 

Most commonly, the catalyst component consists of halides or oxyhalides of titanium, vanadium, chromium, molybdenum, or zirconium, and the cocatalyst component often consists of an alkyl, aryl, or hydride of metals such as aluminum, lithium, zinc, tin, cadmium, beryllium, and magnesium. The catalyst systems may be heterogeneous (some titanium-based systems) or soluble (most vanadium-containing species). Perhaps the best known systems are those derived from TiCl4 or TiCls and an aluminum trialkyl. 

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