Polymerization of Polar Vinyl Monomers with Novel Cobalt-based Catalyst

Cobalt-based complex CH3C(CH2PPh2)3Co(BH4) (1) polymerized polar vinyl monomers like acrylonitrile (AN) and methyl methacrylate (MMA) without any cocatalysts. The molecular weight of the poly(AN) was fairly high at around 500 × 10^3. It was concluded that the polymerizations did not proceed with radical polymerization mechanism based on the copolymerization results with styrene. The obtained poly(AN) had an atactic structure.