Catalyseurs Supportés sur Nanotubes de Carbone pour Polymérisation d'Ethylène – CANAPE

Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have generated a huge activity in most areas of science and engineering due to their unprecedented physical and chemical properties that make them ideal for a wide range of applications as well as for fundamental science. Functionalized carbon nanotubes are emerging as new tools in the field of nanotechnology due to the fact that they can be easily manipulated and modified by covalent or non-covalent functionalization. The present project will focus on their use as a support to anchor late transition metal catalysts for ethylene polymerization. The immobilization of these catalysts has been widely studied on various supports but investigations concerning CNT remain scarce. However, anchoring of a suitable coordination compound to the surface of CNT is expected to lead to different breakthroughs in the field of material and nanosciences. Therefore, in the frame of the present project we propose a detailed investigation of these aspects that was never carried out before. The collaboration and association of the expertise of the two partners will lead to: 1) the development of CNT material with specific properties 2) an appropriate selection of ligands/catalysts for olefin polymerization 3) the development of efficient methodologies for their anchoring to the CNT support 4) the evaluation of the catalytic properties of these new systems and of the synergetic effect between the support and the catalyst 5) detailed evaluation of the efficiency of these systems for the dispersion of CNT into a polymeric matrix for further development of nanocomposite materials. Among others, the present project is expected to lead to a better understanding of the influence of the CNT support on the catalytic properties, the development of improved/new selectivities in polymerization catalyzed by transition metal compounds and the possibility to develop efficient strategies to improve CNT dispersion into polymeric matrixes by surface-initiated polymerization. The complementarity of the partners of the project is obvious, since the development of such catalytic systems and their detailed investigation imply necessarily cross interdisciplinarity and collaborations associating partner 1 (LCC, Toulouse, France) and its long term experience in CNT synthesis and functionalization and partner 2 (ICCAS, Beijing, China) possessing a long-term experience in the field of the design of coordination compounds for polymerization catalyzed reactions and the study of polyolefins properties.