Syndiotactic polystyrene with very high molecular weight produced by sterically and electronically modified catalyst

A new type of the half-metallocene catalysts for the syndiospecific polymerization of styrene was prepared by the reaction of various kinds of trialkanolamine with Cp*TiCl3 in the presence of triethylamine. All seven compounds have a highly thermal stability and they show fairly good activities in the presence of cocatalyst MMAO in styrene polymerization. Especially, highly bulky and electronically deficient 7/MMAO system affords syndiotactic polystyrene with very high molecular weight.