Synthesis of Polyketone STCO Promoted by Rare Earth Catalyst

To lower the cost of polyketone synthesis, rare earth coordinate catalyst was introduced to the copolymerization of carbon monoxide (CO) and styrene (ST) to synthesize aliphatic polyketone STCO.The catalytic system was composed of rare earth neodymium acetate, yttrium acetate,2,2'-bipyridine, p-toluensulfonic acid, cupric p-toluensulfonate, and 1,4-benzoquinone.The catalyst and the copolymer were characterized by infrared spectrum and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy respectively.The effects of each component of catalytic system and the kinds of rare earth acetates on catalytic activity of copolymerization were investigated.The results show that the proposed rare earth has distinct catalytic activity in the copolymerization of CO and ST and the maximum activity can reach 303.3 gSTCO/(mol·h).