Richard Jordan, in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago, and Brian Goodall, in the Catalysis Group at Rohm and Haas Company, are supported by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry GOALI Program to develop catalytic methods to polymerize functionalized olefins. Efforts to unravel the mechanisms by which current catalysts are capable of inserting olefins and acrylates will serve to guide design features for new catalysts that will lead to the copolymerization of olefins and acrylate monomers. The mechanistic studies and catalyst design components will be based in Chicago with the synthesis and analysis of polymers and molecular modeling based in Rohm and Haas laboratories at Spring House.
Polymers are one of the foundational materials of the modern technical world. This project will generate mechanistic information that will guide the design of new catalysts capable of overcoming the polar monomer problem and allow linking of olefin and acrylate monomers to form new copolymer products.
