A new rare earth coordination catalyst for polymerization of acrylonitrile

Abstract

Polymerization of acrylonitrile was carried out for the first time using the rare-earth coordination catalysts composed of rare-earth 2-ethyl hexyl phosphonate [Ln(P 204) 3], dibutylmagnesium [Mg(Bu − n) 2], and N,N,N′,N′-tetramethyl ethylene diamine (TMEDA, 1:6:6 molar ratio). The new catalyst gives high molecular weight polyacrylonitrile in fairly good yield. The triad tacticities of the polymers obtained increase with a decrease of polymerization temperature and mm content attains 0.52 at − 78 °C.