Nitrosylruthenium Complexes as Polymerization Catalysts for Acrylonitrile in DMF.

Nitrosylruthenium complexes bearing two 2,2'-bipyridine (bpy) or 2-pyridinecarboxylate (pyc) ligands, [Ru(NO)X(bpy)2 ]3+ (X=CH3 CN, CH2 =CHCN, H2 O, Cl, ONO2 ) and [Ru(NO)(OH2 )(pyc)2 ]+ , were used as catalysts for the polymerization of acrylonitrile in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) under air without initiators to obtain polyacrylonitrile (PAN) with a high molecular weight and a narrow molecular weight distribution.