The Polymer Society of Korea

Abstract

A series of bis(β-ketoimino)nickel(II) complexes with p-substituted N-phenyl groups were synthesized, and their general coordination geometry was elucidated by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. All the catalyst systems exhibited high catalytic activities at NBE feed contents of up to 50 mol %, resulting in the production of copolymers with high molecular weights. In addition, the content of polar ester groups was precisely controlled by the feed ratio of the monomers. Since the copolymerization behaviors were revealed to be independent of the electronegativity of p-substituent, all the catalyst systems were considered to serve the random copolymerization of NB and NBE. The resulting polynorbornene exhibited the dielectric and surface properties well tunable by compositional modulation.