Synthesis and Characterization of UV Active Compounds for Quenching Metallocene-Catalyzed Polymerization Reactions: an Approach to Understanding their kinetics

Polymerization of olefins is a major industrial process in the production of plastics. These reactions are so fast that is difficult to study their mechanism by monitoring their kinetics. If a UV active compound is used to quench metallocene-catalyzed polymerization, the active site count (necessary for kinetic analysis) can be obtained by multi detection gel permeation chromatography. The goal of this project is to synthesize a UV active compound 3-(pyren-1-yl)-propylisocyanate. The synthesis was performed in three steps starting with pyrene and succinic anhydride. The precursor, 4-(pyren-1-yl)butanoic acid which is also UV active, was synthesized giving an overall yield of 47%. Optimization of the synthesis is in progress to improve upon the reported yield of 62%. From this precursor, 3-(pyren-1-yl)-propylisocyanate will be synthesized and characterized for kinetic studies. Characterizations of the precursors to our compound were done by 300 MHz proton NMR.