Silsesquioxane models for silica surface silanol sites with adjacent siloxide functionalites and olefin polymerization catalysts thereof.

Incompletely condensed silsesquioxanes of the type R7Si7O9(O[SiR'2O]n)OH (R = c-C5H9, c-C6H11; R' = Me, Ph; n = 1-4), containing a siloxane ring of variable size and rigidity and a remaining silanol, are described. Compared with a truly isolated silanol [R7Si8O12(OH)], solution and solid state FT-IR spectra of these compounds show a nu(OH) shift of approximately 150 cm(-1) to lower frequency, which suggests hydrogen bonding of the silanol with the internal siloxane ring. In agreement with this, the relative ion pair acidities of the silanols in THF, determined by UV/Vis, were lowered by 0.8-1.2 compared with a truly isolated silanol. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations on these systems confirm the presence of intramolecular hydrogen bonding. Possible interaction of the silyl ether functionalities with Lewis acidic metal sites was studied for the neutral gallium-substituted systems and cationic titanium silsesquioxane complexes, models for an immobilized titanium olefin polymerization catalyst. The electron donating capability of the siloxide functionalities in 1, 6, and 7 is not sufficient to satisfy the electron deficiency of the corresponding gallium silsesquioxane species, which form dimeric structures with a bridging siloxide unit rather than Lewis base adducts with coordinated siloxide functionalities. Metallation of 1 and 4 with [Cp"Ti(CH2Ph)3] (Cp" = eta5-1,3-C5H3(SiMe3)2) in a 1:1 ratio afforded monomeric titanasilsesquioxanes. To probe the effect of the neighboring siloxane ring on the highly Lewis acidic titanium center, the catalytic activities of the corresponding cationic half-sandwich complexes were tested in 1-hexene polymerization. Compared with the catalyst system based on the isolated silanol [(c-C5H9)7Si8O12OH], the presence of a neighboring siloxane ring causes considerable retardation of the polymerization process but also improves the stability of the catalyst.