Palladium Aryl Sulfonate Phosphine Catalysts for the Copolymerization of Acrylates with Ethene

Abstract

Abstract The reaction of 2‐[bis(2‐methoxy‐phenyl)phosphanyl]‐4‐methyl‐benzenesulfonic acid (a) and 2‐[bis(2′,6′‐dimethoxybiphenyl‐2‐yl)phosphanyl]benzenesulfonic acid (b) with dimethyl( N,N,N ′ ,N ′‐tetramethylethylenediamine)‐palladium(II) (PdMe 2 (TMEDA)) leads to the formation of TMEDA bridged palladium based polymerization catalysts ( 1a and 1b ). Upon reaction with pyridine, two mononuclear catalysts are formed ( 2a and 2b ). These catalysts are able to homopolymerize ethylene and also copolymerize ethylene with acrylates or with norbornenes. With ligand b , high molecular weight polymers are formed in high yields, but higher comonomer incorporations are obtained with ligand a . magnified image