• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.313-318
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• 2016

In this study, an amorphous silica was functionalized with aminosilane, N-[(3-trimethoxysilyl)propyl]ethylenediamine (2NS) and the late transition metal catalysts including ($(DME)NiBr_2$ and $PdCl_2$(COD)) were subsequently immobilized on the functionalized amorphous silica for norbornene polymerization. Effects of the polymerization temperature, polymerization time, Al/Ni molar ratio, and type of co-catalyst on norbornene polymerization were investigated. Unsupported late transition metal catalysts did not show any activities for norbornene polymerization. However, the $SiO_2$/2NS/Ni catayst with MAO system, with increasing polymerization temperature, increased the polymerization activity and decreased the molecular weight of the polynorbornene (PNB). Furthermore, the catalyst when increasing polymerization temperature caused the decrease in both the polymerization activity and molecular weight of PNB. This confirmed that the stability of $SiO_2$/2NS/Ni at a high temperature was greater than that of $SiO_2$/2NS/Pd. Also the longer polymerization time resulted in the higher conversion of norbornene for both catalysts. When the Al : Ni molar ratio was 1000 : 1, the highest activity (15.3 kg-PNB/($({\mu}mol-Ni^*hr$)) but lowest molecular weight ($M_n$ = 124,000 g/mol) of PNB were achieved. Also $SiO_2$/2NS/Ni catalyst with borate/TEAL resulted in diminishing the polymerization activity and molecular weight of PNB with increasing the polymerization temperature.