Development of Highly Active Ring Opening Metathesis Polymerization Catalyst Systems - A New Approach for Green Catalyst Design

Abstract

Abstract The aim of the green chemistry is to develop chemical products and processes having minimal use and generation of hazardous chemicals and low energy requirement. Catalytic reagents are considered to be green tools to synthesize organic molecules as they basically open an alternative synthetic route to target molecules by lowering the energy barriers of the reactions while keeping the selectivity and the yield of the reactions high. Polynorbornene - which can be synthesized by ring opening methathesis polymerization (ROMP) with Grubbs’ catalyst - is used in the automotive and appliance industries mainly as vibration and noise isolators and produced thousands of tons per year scale. It is well known that during the catalytic cycle the reverse phosphine reassociation step competes with the subsequent alkene binding step on the coordination sphere of the catalyst, slowing the observed rate constant. One option to improve the activity of the catalyst system is rolling back the reassociation step by th...