A general strategy for heterogenizing olefin polymerization catalysts and the synthesis of polyolefins and composites

The heterogenization of homogeneous metal complexes on solid supports presents an efficient strategy for bridging homogeneous catalysts with industrially-preferred heterogeneous catalysts; however, a series of drawbacks restrict their implementation in olefin polymerization, particularly for copolymerization with polar comonomers. In this contribution, we report an ionic anchoring strategy that is highly versatile, generally applicable to different systems, and enables strong catalyst-support interactions while tolerating various polar functional groups. In addition to greatly enhanced polymerization properties, the supported catalysts achieved higher comonomer incorporation than their unsupported counterparts. This strategy enabled efficient polymerization at high temperatures at large scale and great control over product morphology, and the facile synthesis of polyolefin composites. More importantly, the dispersion of different fillers in the polyolefin matrix produced great material properties even at low composite loadings. It is expected that this strategy will find applications in different catalytic systems and the synthesis of advanced engineering materials.

Chen Zou, Guifu Si, Changle Chen