Yusuke Ohta, Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, won a CSJ Student Presentation Award 2014

Yusuke Ohta in the Department of Chemistry and Biotechnology, won a CSJ Student Presentation Award 2014.This is a prize for students who gave an excellent presentation at the 94th Annual Meeting of Chemical Society of Japan.

<About awarded research>

Coordination-insertion copolymerization of ethylene with polar vinyl monomers by late-transition-metal catalysis has been established as a powerful method to synthesize structurally-defined functional polyethylenes. The most successful catalysts for such copolymerization have to date been palladium complexes ligated by a phosphine?sulfonate, which can utilize a variety of polar monomers. Although the steric and electronic effects of the palladium catalysts have been investigated to improve polymer molecular weight, it still remains challenging to quantify the steric influence.

   In this research, I synthesized a variety of alkylphosphine-sulfonate bearing bulky alkyl groups and performed ethylene polymerization and ethylene/polar monomer copolymerization. Quantitative analysis revealed that there is strong correlation between (co)polymer molecular weights and steric bulkiness of the alkyl substituents. Based on the results, I successfully obtained high-molecular-weight copolymers of ethylene and polar monomers. 

<Comments>

I am very happy to receive such an honorable prize. I am grateful to Prof. Kyoko Nozaki, Dr. Shingo Ito and all members of Nozaki laboratory for fruitful discussions.