Potentially Practical Catalytic Systems for Olefin-Polar Monomer Coordination Copolymerization

Studies on transition-metal catalyzed olefin-polar monomer coordination copolymerization and their resulting polar-functionalized polyolefin materials have attracted attention from both academia and industry.After decades of research,recent developments in a variety of high-performance catalytic systems have shown that this field is on the brink of industrialization.This review summarizes representative olefin-polar monomer coordination copolymerization catalyst systems that may be suitable for industrial polyolefin production via homogeneous solution-phase processes or heterogeneous gas-phase/slurry-phase processes.

Polyolefin vitrimers bearing acetoacetate functionality

Polyolefin vitrimers are polymer networks bearing reversible covalent crosslinking points, enabling them to be reprocessed and recycled. In this contribution, a series of polyolefin vitrimers were designed based on the acetoacetate-functionalized polyolefin copolymers, which were produced through the direct copolymerization of ethylene with polar comonomers using a phosphinesulfonate palladium catalyst. The pendant acetoacetate group could mediate several characteristic reactions, such as the Michael addition reaction, ketone-amine condensation and metal coordination reaction. As such, structurally adjustable polyolefin vitrimers can be accessed by introducing various dynamic crosslinking bonds, including disulfide exchange, transamination of vinylogous urethane and labile metal coordination bond. The utilization of different crosslinking reactions and the mole ratio of crosslinkers significantly impact the material properties of the resultant polymers. Specifically, the generated polyolefin vitrimers demonstrated excellent reprocessability and closed-loop recycling properties. The study in this work provides an efficient strategy to access various polyolefin vitrimers.

Synthesis of silicon-functionalized polyolefins by subsequent cobalt-catalyzed dehydrogenative silylation and nickel-catalyzed copolymerization

Metal catalyzed olefin hydrosilylation and metal mediated olefin polymerization are both of great academic and industrial importance, In this article, these two aspects are combined to prepare silicon- functionalized polyolefin materials, First, pyridine-diimine cobalt-catalyzed dehydrogenative silylations of various terminal olefins with alkylsilanes lead to the formation of a variety of allylsilanes at high yields, Then, the allylsilanes are copolymerized with ethylene using an α-diimine nickel catalyst, leading to the formation of branched polyolefins with high molecular weight and moderate comonomer incorporation. This subsequent catalytic process is an efficient strategy for the synthesis of silicon-functionalized polyolefins using widely available and inexpensive starting materials.

Synthesis of Bimodal Distributed Cyclic Olefin Copolymers with Improved Tensile Properties

Ethylene/norbornene(NBE)copolymers are the most representative and widely-used cyclic olefin copolymers(COCs).Higher NBE content in COCs leads to higher transparency,glass transition temperature and mechanical strength,but also makes the COC more brittle and therefore hampers its end uses.In this study,to improve the brittleness of COCs while maintaining their high strength,heat-resistant and transparency,bimodal distributed COCs have been prepared via two selective catalysts reactive blending in one pot.The shape of the molecular weight distribution curves of the obtained COCs could be easily controlled by adjusting the proportion of the two catalysts.These COCs maintained high glass transition temperature,balanced tensile performance,high transparency.

New Half-sandwich Zirconium(Ⅳ) Complexes Containing Salicylaldimine Ligands： Synthesis, Characterizations and Catalytic Properties

Two new half-sandwich zirconium（IV） complexes bearing salicylaldimine ligands of the type Cp＊Zr[2-tBu-4-R-6-（CH=NiPr）C6H2O]C12[R=H（1）, tBu（2）] were prepared by the reaction of Cp＊ZrC13 with the corresponding lithium of salicylaldimine ligands 2-tBu-4-R-6-（CH=NiPr）C6H2OLi[R=H（LiLa）, tBu（LiLb）]. Com- plexes 1 and 2 were characterized by 1H NMR, BC NMR spectroscopy and elemental analysis. When activated with AliBu3 and Ph3CB（C6F5）4, both complexes 1 and 2 exhibited reasonable catalytic activities for ethylene polymeriza- tion, producing polyethylenes with moderate molecular weight. Complexes 1 and 2 also exhibited reasonable catalyt- ic activities for ethylene copolymerization with 1-hexene, producing poly（ethylene-co-l-hexene）s with moderate molecular weight and reasonable 1-hexene content.