In Situ Monitoring of a Heterogeneous Palladium-Based Polyketone Catalyst

Abstract

CO-assisted ethene insertion is the most remarkable aspect of the catalytic propagation mechanism of CO/ethene copolymerization at a microcrystalline catalyst, namely, [(dppp)Pd(CH3)(OSO2CF3)] (dppp=1,3-bis(diphenylphosphanyl)propane). Both single propagation steps and copolymer growth (shown schematically; R represents the growing polyketone chain, the phenyl groups in dppp have been omitted) could be monitored in situ under mild, solvent-free reaction conditions with the aid of a very sensitive IR technique, PM-RAIRS.