Metal-assembled compounds: precursors of polymerization catalysts and new materials

Selected results of our recent research on titanium, zirconium, hafnium and magnesium chloride and oxygen-based metal-assembled compounds are summarized from the perspective of these metals acting as catalysts for olefin polymerization. This paper discusses our studies on the isolation of various metal-assembled compounds, the determination of their structures by X-ray crystallography and the relationship of their polynuclear structures to their activity as polymerization catalysts as well as to the field of molecule-functional-based materials. As we demonstrate here, our attempts to prepare new metal-assembled pre-catalysts and to understand the chemistry of formation of these new complexes often led to unexpected reactions, which could be applied to syntheses of well-defined heterogeneous olefin polymerization catalysts.