Preparation and Hydrogenation of Dicyclopentadiene-based Cyclic Olefin Copolymers
摘要
The design of low-cost and high-performance cyclic olefin copolymers remains challenging. Ethylene copolymers with dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) were prepared using Ph2C(Cp)(Flu)ZrCl2 (Cat. 1), rac-Et(Ind)2ZrCl2 (Cat. 2), Me2C(Cp)(Flu)ZrCl2 (Cat. 3) and Me2Si(Ind)2ZrCl2 (Cat. 4) combined with [Ph3C][B(C6F5)4]/iBu3Al. Ni(acac)2/iBu3Al was then used to catalyze the hydrogenation of the intracyclic double bonds of ethylene/DCPD copolymers. The results showed that compared to C2 symmetric catalysts (Cat. 2 and Cat. 4), Cs symmetric catalysts (Cat. 1 and Cat. 3) facilitated the incorporation of copolymers with higher DCPD. 1H-and 13C-NMR spectra indicated that ethylene/DCPD copolymerization occurred via enhancement of the norbornene ring. Additionally, measurement of the reactivity ratios provided further confirmation that the copolymers had random sequence distributions. All these samples demonstrated transmittance values above 90% in the visible wavelength range from 400 nm to 800 nm. By changing the fraction of monomers, the glass transition temperature, refractive index, Young's modulus, and tensile strength of the copolymer increased as the incorporation of DCPD increased, whereas the Abbe number and elongation at break decreased. Compared with ethylene/norbornene and ethylene/tetracyclicdodecene copolymers, ethylene/DCPD copolymers, with excellent optical and mechanical properties, are promising materials.