Polymerization with Dinuclear Metallocene Compounds

The metallocene compounds had been applied to the polymerizations of olefins and vinyl monomers with methylaluminoxane (MAO) cocatalyst, and they have usually one transition metal atom per molecule, i.e., mononuclear metallocene. Recently it has been found that the dinuclear metallocene compounds containing two transition metal atoms exhibit the peculiar polymerization behaviors for olefins and vinyl monomers. In this article, the dinuclear metallocenes are classified into four groups of dinuclear bent-metallocene, dinuclear ansa-metallocene, dinuclear constrained geometry catalyst and dinuclear half-metallocene, and then the synthesis of dinuclear metallocene of each group as well as the polymerization behaviors for ethylene, propylene, and styrene are described.