From unstable to stable: half-metallocene catalysts for olefin polymerization

Prabhuodeyara M Gurubasavaraj; Herbert W Roesky; Bijan Nekoueishahraki; Aritra Pal; Regine Herbst-Irmer

doi:10.1021/ic800198e

From unstable to stable: half-metallocene catalysts for olefin polymerization

Inorg Chem. 2008 Jun 16;47(12):5324-31. doi: 10.1021/ic800198e. Epub 2008 May 21.

Authors

Prabhuodeyara M Gurubasavaraj¹, Herbert W Roesky, Bijan Nekoueishahraki, Aritra Pal, Regine Herbst-Irmer

Affiliation

¹ Institute of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.

PMID: 18491892
DOI: 10.1021/ic800198e

Abstract

The reaction of LAlMeOH [L = CH(N(Ar)(CMe))2, Ar = 2,6-i-Pr2C6H3] with CpTiMe3, Cp*TiMe3, and Cp*ZrMe3 was investigated to yield LAlMe(mu-O)TiMe2Cp (2), LAlMe(mu-O)TiMe2Cp* (3), and LAlMe(mu-O)ZrMe2Cp* (4), respectively. The resulting compounds 2-4 are stable at elevated temperatures, in contrast to their precursors such as CpTiMe3 and Cp*ZrMe3, which already decompose below room temperature. Compounds 2-4 were characterized by single-crystal X-ray structural analysis. Compounds 2 and 3 were tested for ethylene polymerization in the presence of methylaluminoxane. The half-metallocene complex 3 has higher activity compared to 2. The polydispersities are in the range from 2.8 to 4.2. A copolymerization with styrene was not observed.