Synthesis and Characterization of Syndiotactic 1,2-Poly(3-Methyl-1,3-Pentadiene)

3-Methyl-1,3-pentadiene was polymerized with the system FeCl2(bipy)2-MAO (bipy= bipyridine) obtaining a highly stereoregular polymer. The polymer was completely characterized by IR, NMR (13C, 1H in solution and 13C in the solid state), DSC and X-ray techniques and found to have an E-1,2 syndiotactic structure. The crystalline structure of the polymer was also determined and comparisons are made with other crystalline 1,2 polydienes. The results were compared with those obtained from other dienes (butadiene; isoprene; 2,3-dimethyl-1,3-butadiene) with the same catalyst, which allowed to get new information on some mechanistic aspects of diene polymerization.