Publications
LDRD final report on new homogeneous and supported oligomerization catalysts (LDRD 42461)
The overall purpose of this LDRD is multifold. First, we are interested in preparing new homogeneous catalysts that can be used in the oligomerization of ethylene and in understanding commercially important systems better. Second, we are interested in attempting to support these new homogeneous catalysts in the pores of nano- or mesoporous materials in order to force new and unusual distributions of a-olefins to be formed during the oligomerization. Thus the overall purpose is to try to prepare new catalytic species and to possibly control the active site architecture in order to yield certain desired products during a catalytic reaction, much like nature does with enzymes. In order to rationally synthesize catalysts it is imperative to comprehend the function of the various components of the catalyst. In heterogeneous systems, it is of utmost importance to know how a support interacts with the active site of the catalyst. In fact, in the catalysis world this lack of fundamental understanding of the relationship between active site and support is the single largest reason catalysis is considered an 'empirical' or 'black box' science rather than a well-understood one. In this work we will be preparing novel ethylene oligomerization catalysts, which are normally P-O chelated homogeneous complexes, with new ligands that replace P with a stable carbene. We will also examine a commercially catalyst system and investigate the active site in it via X-ray crystallography. We will also attempt to support these materials inside the pores of nano- and mesoporous materials. Essentially, we will be tailoring the size and scale of the catalyst active site and its surrounding environment to match the size of the molecular product(s) we wish to make. The overall purpose of the study will be to prepare new homogeneous catalysts, and if successful in supporting them to examine the effects that steric constraints and pore structures can have on growing oligomer chains.