Synthesis of New Bis(amidine)–Cobalt Catalysts and Their Application to Styrene Polymerization

Abstract

Two new bis(amidine) cobalt(II) complexes were rationally designed and efficiently synthesized. The first synthesized cobalt complex was based on a cyclic bis(amidine) ligand with chiral vicinal diphenyl groups. The structure was verified by single-crystal X-ray crystallography. As expected from the ligand structure, the Co–N bonds in this complex were significantly shorter than those found in the corresponding 1,2-diimine cobalt complex. This indicates that the bis(amidine) ligand has better electron-donating capability than the 1,2-diimine ligand. Upon test polymerization of styrene, the complex exhibited a moderate activity of 5.88 × 105 g PS/(mol Co h). On the basis of this encouraging result, a new 1,2-diaminobenzene-derived bis(amidine) ligand was efficiently synthesized and used to make the corresponding cobalt(II) complex. When subjected to styrene polymerization, the resulting complex showed unusually high polymerization activity [164 × 105 g PS/(mol Co h)] and high conversion (>99%). The resulting polymer was identified as atactic polystyrene by 13C NMR spectroscopy analysis. The significantly enhanced styrene polymerization activity of the 1,2-diaminobenzene-originated bis(amidine) cobalt(II) complex is attributed to the improved electron-donating capability of the ligand.