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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Separation of Uranium and Thorium for 230Th-U Dating of Submarine Hydrothermal Sulfides
Published on: May 20, 2019
Thorium(iv) trialkyl complexes of non-carbocyclic ligands as highly active isoprene polymerisation catalysts
1State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 5625, Renmin Street, Changchun, 130022 China. jhcheng@ciac.ac.cn.
Abstract:
A series of mono-anionic non-carbocyclic ligands, including bidentate benzamidinate [PhC(NDipp)2] (Dipp = C6H3-2,6-iPr2), iminophosphinamide [Ph2P(NDipp)2] and phosphinoamide [Ph2PNDipp], and tridentate hydrotris(3,5-dimethyl-1-pyrazolyl)borate (TpMe2) were used to stabilize the corresponding thorium(iv) trialkyl complexes [PhC(NDipp)2]Th(CH2SiMe3)3 (1), [Ph2P(NDipp)2]Th(CH2SiMe3)3 (2), [Ph2P(NDipp)]Th(p-CH2-C6H4-Me)3 (3) and (TpMe2)Th(CH2SiMe3)3 (4), which were characterized by NMR spectroscopy and single-crystal X-ray analysis. Complexes 1-4 in combination with [Ph3C][B(C6F5)4] and AliBu3 form non-Cp-ligated actinide catalyst systems to show high activity and high cis-1,4-selectivity (89.9%) or trans-1,4-selectivity (91.4%) for the polymerization of isoprene. The reaction rate and selectivity of complexes 1 and 2 were controlled by the crowded space around the thorium centre, corroborated by the kinetics of the polymerization and the steric maps.
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