Chapter 7: Dimerization, oligomerization and polymerization of alkenes and alkynes

The annual production of various polymers can be measured only in billion tons of which polyolefins alone figure around 100 million tons per year. In addition to radical and ionic polymerization, a large part of this huge amount is manufactured by coordination polymerization technology. The most important Ziegler-Natta, chromium- and metallocene-based catalysts, however, contain early transition metals which are too oxophilic to be used in aqueous media. Nevertheless, with the late transition metals there is some room for coordination polymerization in aqueous systems [1,2] and the number of studies published on this topic is steadily growing. ...