More than 50 years have passed since Ziegler and Natta shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of olefin polymerization catalysts. The field of metal-catalysed polymerization has since matured, in no small part owing to the development of several high-performance catalysts. Although polymerization research has in many ways been driven by catalyst development, this has often occurred as a result of trial and error discovery of a promising motif, followed by extensive tuning of the steric and electronic properties of the ligand(s) present in the lead complex. Recently, some alternative design strategies have emerged that afforded new classes of olefin polymerization catalysts. This Perspective highlights recently designed catalyst motifs and the novel reactivity patterns they enable. Special attention is given to methods specifically designed for the copolymerization of ethylene with polar-functionalized co-monomers — challenging reactions that showcase these creatively designed catalyst motifs.

自齐格勒和纳塔因发现烯烃聚合催化剂而获得诺贝尔化学奖以来，已有50多年的历史了。此后，金属催化的聚合领域已经成熟，这在很大程度上要归功于几种高性能催化剂的发展。尽管聚合反应的研究在许多方面都是由催化剂的开发推动的，但这往往是由于反复试验发现了有前途的基序而导致的，随后对铅中存在的配体的空间和电子性质进行了广泛的调节。复杂的。最近，出现了一些可供选择的设计策略，这些策略提供了新型的烯烃聚合催化剂。本“观点”重点介绍了最近设计的催化剂基序及其可实现的新颖反应性模式。