Substituent effects of adamantyl group on amido ligand in syndiospecific polymerization of propylene with ansa-dimethylsilylene(fluorenyl)(amido) zirconium complex

Abstract

A series of new fluorenylamido-ligated zirconium complexes bearing an electron-donating adamantyl group on the amido ligand were synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, 1H NMR, and single crystal X-ray analysis. The coordination mode of the fluorenyl ligand to the zirconium metal was η3 manner, and all the complexes were Cs-symmetric in solution. The complexes showed moderate activity (1.0 × 105 g-polymer mol-Zr-1·h-1), even at a low Al/Zr ratio of 50. The increase of propylene pressure improved the activity by one order of magnitude (up to 1.0 × 106 g-polymer mol-Ti-1·h-1). All catalyst systems gave syndiotactic polypropylene, where the complex containing the 3,6-di-t-butyl fluorenyl ligand was more effective for the enhancement of the syndiospecificity. The increase of propylene pressure also improved the syndiospecificity with the syndiotactic pentad of 0.96 and the melting point of 159 °C.