Abstract

Olefin metathesis has been widely used for synthesis of advanced polymeric materials, and ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) and acyclic diene metathesis (ADMET) polymerization are well known as the efficient method for the purpose. Ruthenium-carbene (Grubbs type) catalysts and molybdenum-alkylidene (Schrock type) catalysts have been known, however, these catalysts face difficulties with thermal stability and side reactions especially caused by the catalyst decomposition with Ru. Importantly, the Mo catalyst enables quantitative end-functionalization under optimized conditions. Development of new catalysts has thus been considered as one of the important subjects in this research field, whereas majority of the reports were limited to ruthenium, molybdenum, and tungsten. This seminar introduces our efforts concerning synthesis of chemically recyclable biobased aliphatic polyesters using conventional catalysts and development of vanadium-, niobium-alkylidene catalysts which enabled to introduce new possibilities for synthesis of new polymeric materials by exhibiting remarkable catalytic activities as well as thermal stability.

Biography

Kotohiro Nomura finished his master studies in University of Tokyo (1988), and then joined Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd as a researcher. He received his Ph.D. from Osaka University (1993) and joined MIT as a postdoc (Prof. R. R. Schrock). He became an associate professor in Nara Institute of Science and Technology (1998) and has been a full professor in Tokyo Metropolitan University since 2010. He has co-authored >350 publications, and one of his major subjects is vanadium complex catalysts for olefin metathesis, olefin polymerization and dimerization. Five major awards in Japan: The CSJ Award for Young Chemists in Technical Development (1996), Catalysis Society of Japan Award (Industrial field, 2001; Academic field, 2019), The Japan Petroleum Institute Award (Academic field, 2024), The Society of Polymer Science, Japan Award (Science field, 2024). Vice President, Catalysis Society of Japan (2024-).