Dual Catalyst System for Asymmetric Alternating Copolymerization of Carbon Dioxide and Cyclohexene Oxide with Chiral Aluminum Complexes: Lewis Base as Catalyst Activator and Lewis Acid as Monomer Activator

Optically active aluminum complexes such as Schiff base, binuclear β-ketoiminate, and bisprolinol complexes were found to promote asymmetric alternating copolymerizations of carbon dioxide and cyclohexene oxide. The aluminum Schiff base complexes–tetraethylammonium acetate afforded isotactic poly­(cyclohexene carbonate)­s with low enantioselectivities. Lewis bases having two coordinating sites were utilized to enhance activity and selectivity based on the binuclear structure of the aluminum β-ketoiminate clarified by X-ray crystallography. [2gAlMe]2–bulky bisimidazole produced the alternating copolymer with high enantioselectivity (62% ee). The polymerization is considered to preferentially proceed at more crowded, enantioselective site owing to coordination of bulky Lewis bases to aluminums in less enantioselective sites. 32AlMe–2-picoline also exhibited a high enantioselectivity (67% ee). Methylaluminum bis­(2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenoxide) was applied to perform faster and more enantioselective copolymerizations at low temperature (82% ee). The asymmetric copolymerizations were found to be significantly dependent on size of epoxide, temperature, and kind/amount of activators.