A Protons Exchanged Montmorillonite Clay as an Efficient Catalyst for the Reaction of Isobutylene Polymerization

“Maghnite” a montmorillonite sheet silicate clay, exchanged with protons to produce “H-Maghnite” is an efficient catalyst for cationic polymerization of many vinylic and heterocyclic monomers (Belbachir, M. U.S. Patent. 066969.0101 –2001). The structure compositions of both “Maghnite” and “H-Maghnite” have been developed. Isobutylene monomer, wich is polymerizable only by cationic process (Odian,G. La Polymerisation :principes et Applications; Ed.Technica: New York, 1994; pp 222-226), was used to elucidate the cationic character of polymerization. The polymerization was performed under suitable conditions at isobutylene vaporization temperature (–7°C). Experiments revealed that polymerization induced by “H-Maghnite” proceed in bulk and in solution. In contrast to findings with methylene chloride CH2Cl2 as a polar solvent, polymerization yields with hexane C6H14 non-polar solvent is very significant. In bulk polymerization, Isobutylene conversion increases with increasing “H-Maghnite” proportion.


Introduction
The use of acid treated clays as a solid source of protons in a number of industrial significant reactions continue because they constitute a widely available, inexpensive solid source of protons, e.g they were employed as cracking catalysts until the 1960s [1].And are still currently used in industrial processes such as the alkylation of phenols [2] and the dimerization and polymerization of unsaturated hydrocarbons [3].
Montmorillonites have both brönsted and Lewis acid sites and when exchanged with cations having a high charges density, as protons, produce highly-active catalysts for acid-catalysed reactions [4].Inercalated organic molecules are mobile and can be highly polarized when situated in the space between the charged clay layers.These exchanged montmorillonites have been successfully used as catalysts for the reactions of polymerization [3].
The present study is also concerned with polymerization and examines the catalytic activity of an Algerian proton exchanged montmorillonite clay called "Maghnite" via isobutylene polymerization to exhibit the cationic character of the reation [5].The aim of this research is to extend the scope of other promising new field of polymer synthesis by the use of another catalyst system that has been shown to exhibit higher efficiency.This paper concerns detailed analyses of "raw-Maghnite", "H-Maghnite" and polymerization products, effect of catalyst ration and solvent polarity on Isobutylene conversion.

Experimental
A. Materials 1) n-C 6 H 14 was refluxed with fuming sulfuric acid, washed neutral with distilled water, dried over molecular sieves, refluxed and distilled from CaH 2 under a nitrogen atmosphere on the day of the experiment.
2) CH 2 Cl 2 was dried over molecular sieves, distilled over CaH 2 , refluxed with triethylaluminium under nitrogen atmosphere overnight and freshly distilled on the day of the experiment.
4) Isobutylene (IB) was dried by passing the gas through a column packed with BaO, and condensing it under a nitrogen atmosphere.  1 H NMR spectra were recorded on an AM 300 FT Bruker instrument using CDCl 3 as solvent, and tetramethylsilane (TMS) as internal standard.

Catalyst Structure
Various methods of analysis, such as 27 Al and 29 Si MAS NMR, show that "Maghnit" is a montmorillonite sheet silicate clay.The elementary analysis of the selected samples obtained using XRF and monomer conversions obtained from the reaction of 1g of each sample with 10g of Isobutylene during 3 hours in a bulk polymerization at -7°C, are as settled in the following Table 1.
It is necessary to report that the best value of isobutylene conversion was obtained with "H-Maghnite0.25M",for this reason we kept this sample to study the effect of catalyst proportions and solvent on isobutylene polymerization.Acid treatment of ''Raw-Maghnit'' cause reduction in octahedral content (Al 2 O 3 ) resulted in an increase in the proportion of silica (SiO 2) observed.
The X-Ray powder diffraction profiles (Figure 1 and Table 2) exhibited the presence of other crystalline phases as quartz, feldspath and calcite in "raw-Maghnit" By treatment acid, all trace of calcite was removed in "H-Maghnite".The increase in basal spacing from 12.5 Å in "raw-Maghnite'', characteristic of one water layer between the sheets, to value of 15.02 Å in ''H-Maghnite'', where there are two interlamellar water layers, subsquent to acid treatment reflects the change in interlayer cation and its associated hydration state [6].The IR Spectra of Raw-Maghnit and H-Maghnite0.25M(Fig. 2) are in good agrement with literature [7].The characteristic vibrations of hydroxy groups, the silicate anion and the octahedral cations were observed in the IR spectra of both montmorillonites.The most intense band near 1040 Cm -1 is attributed to the Si-O stretching vibrtations of the tetrahedral layer and the bands near 522 and 466 Cm -1 are assigned to Si-O bending vibrations of smectites.A low intensity band near 800 Cm -1 , assigned to four-coordinated silica [8], indicates the presence of amorphous silica.Compareson of Raw-Maghnite and H-Maghnite0.25Mspectra show a small increasing in the SiO 2 band intensity near 800 Cm -1 in H-Maghnite0.25M,reflects alterations in the amount of amorphous silica [9].
The 27 Al MAS NMR spectra of both Raw-Maghnite and H-Maghnite-0.25M(Fig. 3) show Aluminium in two tetrahedral environments with resonances centered at 60 and 68 ppm, in addition to the main contribution from the octahedral aluminium at 2.9ppm.These values and assignments concur with those published in literature [6,10,11].

Polymerization and Products characterization
The results of experiments of Isobutylene polymerization induced by "H-Maghnite0.25M"are reported in Table 3.For all these experiments the temperature was kept constant at -7°C for 3 hours.

Effect of "H-Maghnite0.25M" proportion
We can see from Table 3 that, the conversion of monomer increases with increasing "H-Maghnite0.25M"proportion (experiments 1,2,3).This lead was followed up by a serie of deeper experiments in which the conversion of Isobutylene with the time has been observed at various amounts of catalyst.Table 4 and Figure 5 show that increasing the "H-Maghnite0.25M"amounts yielded higher Isobutylene conversions.This phenomena is probably the result of number of "initiating active sites " responsible of inducing polymerization, this number is prorata to the catalyst amount used in reaction.Data in Table 3 show that polymerization carried out in solution leaded to higher molecular weights and narrower MWDs (M w /M n ) .However conversions in solution were smaller than the ones obtained in bulk polymerization.Low conversions in solution polymerization may be explained by the difficult contact in heterogeneous phase, between monomer particles and the "initiating active sites" of "catalyst" surface.
Conversion of monomer obtained in non-polar solvent (C 6 H 14 ) was more important than the ones obtained in polar solvent (CH 2 Cl 2 ), this result is due to "catalyst" structure.As all minerals clay, it shows an affinity over polar particles, in this case, adsorbed molecules of polar solvent (CH 2 Cl 2 ) occupied "initiating active sites", and led to low Isobutylene conversions.

Characterization of products
An investigation was devoted to the analysis of the polymer from experiment 2 in Table 3 by 1 H NMR spectroscopy at 300MHz (Table 5 and Fig. 6).The integration of 1 H NMR peaks of protons carried by terminal double bonds is necessary to determinate proportions of these structures (A, B).
Ecocatalyseur spectroscopy at 300 MHz (Solvent CDCl 3 ) (Fig. 6) showed different peaks, the methyl groups of the main chain at 1.11ppm, the methylene groups at 1.41ppm, the terminal tert-butyl groups at 0.99ppm.
Besides these well-known resonances, analysis shows at 5.14ppm the characteristic resonance of the proton borne by the double bond of the terminal trisubstituted unsaturation PIB-CH=C(CH 3 ) 2 , at 4.64ppm the proton at a cis position of the methyl group belonging to the function PIB-C(CH 3 )=CH 2 and at 4.84ppm the multiplet of the proton at a trans position of the same function.

Mechanism of the reaction
Isobutylene is an monomer witch is polymerizable only by cationic way.According to the foregoing discussion and the results of product analysis, we may suggest a cationic mechanism for the resulting reaction of polymerization induced by "H-Maghnite0.25M".
Protons carried by montmorillonite sheets of "H-Maghnite0.25M"induced the cationic polymerization, these montmorillonite sheets take place as counter-anions.Propagation and termination then take place by conventional cationic mechanism.Termination by proton transfer to monomer and/or to initiator produced unsaturations onto polyisobutylene chains.

C.
Procedure and Polymer characterizationPolymerizations were carried out in stirred flasks at -7 °C.The catalyst was dried in a muffle at 120°C over night and then transferred to a vacuum desiccator containing P 2 O 5 .After cooling to room temperature under vacum, the mineral was added to the Isobutylene (10g) or IB (10g)-solvent (90ml) mixture preliminary keeped in stirred flask at Isobutylene boiling point temperature (-7°C).At the required time, an aliquot of the reaction mixture was then taken in such manner as to exclude any clay mineral and slowly added to methanol with stirring.The precipitated polymer was filtered off and dried at 35-40°C under vacuum and weighed.The polymers were redissolved in CH 2 Cl 2 and precipitated into methanol for characterization and molecular weight measurement.Molecular weights were determined by a Waters high pressure GPC instrument (Model 6000A Pump) having a serie of ultra-Styragel columns (100, 500, 10 3 , 10 4 , 10 5 A°), a Differential Refractometer 2401 and a UV absorbance Detector Model 440.The flow rate of tetrahydrofuran (THF) was 1 ml/min.The calibration curve was made with well-fractionated polyisobutylene standards.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5.Effect of catalyst proportion upon the conversion of Isobutylene
Al 2 O 3 Fe 2 O 3 CaO MgO Na 2 O K 2 O TiO 2 SO 3 As PF * *PF : Pert in Fire

Table 4 .
Isobutylene conversions with time : for 10g of Isobutylene, the amounts of H-