Synthetic rubbers prepared by lanthanide coordination catalysts

Abstract

China is rich in rare earth resources. Rare earth elements, also named lanthanides, are number 58 to number 81 elements in the elemental periodic table. They have unique electronic structures and may form various coordination compounds. In the early 1960s, researchers at the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CIAC) found the catalytic activities of lanthanide compounds in stereospecific polymerization of conjugated dienes, and published the first paper on this topic in 1964. On the basis of this finding, CIAC launched extensive research activities on lanthanide compounds as diene polymerization catalysts, from a series of fundamental research to the efforts of industrializing the rare earth catalyzed cis-1,4-polybutatine rubber and cis-1,4-polyisoprene rubber. This review aims to summarize the progress in this field in the past half century.