Ethylene polymerization initiated by tertiary diamine/n-butyllithium complexes: an interpretation from density functional theory study.

The mechanism of ethylene insertions into eight tertiary diamine/n-butyllithium complexes has been studied at the BLYP/DNP level. In contrast to the cationic coordination polymerization in which a strong coordination complex between ethylene and the metal center is formed prior to ethylene insertion, there is only a weak van der Waals complex between ethylene and tertiary diamine/n-butyllithium complex. After crossing a four-membered-ring transition state, ethylene inserts into the Li-C bond. The insertion barriers for the eight reactions are in the range of 6.9-11.0 kcal/mol, comparable to those of ethylene cationic coordination polymerizations. However, the polymerization activities of ethylene anionic polymerizations are much lower than those of cationic coordination polymerizations. Comparing the energy profiles of these ethylene anionic polymerizations with those of cationic coordination polymerizations, it can be found that the transition states in the ethylene anionic polymerizations are higher in energy than the reactants, while the transition states in ethylene cationic coordination polymerizations are lower than the reactants. Therefore, ethylene anionic polymerizations need additional energy to climb the energy barriers, while the energies for overcoming the transition states in the cationic coordination polymerizations can be obtained from reactants that are higher in energy than the reactants. We reason the differences in their energy profiles could be one of the reasons for the lower activity of ethylene anionic polymerization than ethylene cationic coordination polymerization despite their comparable insertion barriers.