Recent Advances in Rare Earth Complexes Bearing Allyl Ligands and Their Reactivity towards Conjugated Dienes and Styrene Polymerization

Abstract

This mini-review focuses on recent advances on the synthesis, structure, and characterization of allyl-based rare earth organometallic complexes, with emphasis on their ability to catalyze the polymerization of non-polar monomers such as conjugated dienes, styrene, and their related copolymerization.

Highly Active Iminopyridyl Iron-Based Catalysts for the Polymerization of Isoprene

“…The coordination-insertion polymerization of isoprene produces four types of unit distributions such as cis -1,4, trans -1,4, 3,4 and 1,2-vinyl arrangements (Figure 1), the amount and type of sequences dictating the resulting thermal, mechanical and physical properties of the polymer. To date, single-site catalysts for the polymerization of 1,3-dienes are mainly based on transition (Ti, Co, Ni) and rare earth (Nd) metal-based systems, producing concomitantly, to a certain degree, high molecular mass polymers with controlled microstructures [14,15,16,17,18,19]. On the other hand, single-site iron-based catalysis for isoprene polymerization has received less attention, whereas this metal is easily accessible, inexpensive and essentially non-toxic compared to its counterparts [20].…”

Catalysts for the Controlled Polymerization of Conjugated Dienes

“…Finally, our group contributed under the form of a mini-review, which focuses on the recent advances on the synthesis, structure, and characterization of allyl-based rare earth organometallic complexes, with emphasis on their ability to catalyze the polymerization of non-polar monomers such as conjugated dienes, styrene, and their related copolymerization [21].…”

Recent Advances in Rare Earth Complexes Containing N-Heterocyclic Carbenes: Synthesis, Reactivity, and Applications in Polymerization

“…The development of Ln catalysts for polymerization has attracted a considerable amount of attention in recent decades [16,17]. Compared with transition metal catalysts, Ln complexes are considered to have unique advantages in the coordination polymerization of styrene, the coordination polymerization of conjugated dienes, the ring-opening polymerization of cyclic esters [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26], and the coordination polymerization of polar monomers [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]. Yet, the employment of Ln-NHCs in this area remains relatively unexplored.…”