Living polymerizations using ring-opening metathesis (ROMP) have allowed the synthesis of polymers controlled structure and properties. In the past years, efforts have been focused on developing novel -metal alkylidene complexes that catalyze this and provide either access to new product or easier . All of the catalysts developed to date are high state organometallic complexes, which exhibit tolerance to polar functional groups, and only the living polymerization of norbornene and its . Recently, we have synthesized a ruthenium complex that exhibits exceptional tolerance to variety of polar functional groups and also catalyzes the ROMP of norbornene. Because we were interested elucidating the details of this living polymerization, investigated the ROMP of highly reactive monomer [3.2.0] heptene (I), catalyzed by the late-transitionmetal complex (PPh_3)_2(Cl)_2Ru(=CHCH=CPh_2) (II; eq 1). We hope that an investigation of this system will provide us with a better understanding of the mechanism polymerization catalyzed by late-transition-metal alkylidene complexes and eventually allow us to control weight in the preparation of functionalized with potential uses in biological applications.
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Wu et al. (1993) studied this question.