Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, May 2007. / Restricted until 3rd May 2012.

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La volonté croissante de diminuer l’empreinte écologique des matières plastiques favorise le développement de polymères et d’additifs issus de ressources renouvelables afin de limiter leur impact environnemental. Les retardateurs de flamme sont une famille d’additifs qui jouent un rôle crucial dans de nombreux domaines d’application où le risque d’incendie est avéré. Cette étude vise donc à développer de nouveaux systèmes retardateurs de flamme à partir de composés issus de la biomasse afin d’améliorer le comportement au feu d’un polymère bio-sourcé, l’acide polylactique (PLA). La lignine et la cellulose ont été choisies comme composés de base. Des procédés adaptés ont permis de transformer ces composés à l’état nanoparticulaire, puis ils ont été fonctionnalisés avec des produits phosphorés ou alors mélangés avec du polyphosphate d’ammonium, et incorporés dans l’acide polylactique au mélangeur interne. La stabilité thermique, l’inflammabilité et le comportement au feu des composites ainsi obtenus ont été étudiés. Les résultats obtenus avec certains systèmes sont prometteurs. / The growing desire to reduce the ecological footprint of plastic materials promotes the development of polymers and additives from renewable resources in order to limit their environmental impact. Flame retardants represent an important family of additives that play a crucial role in many fields where fire hazard is encountered. Thus this study aims at developing new flame retardant systems from biomass compounds to improve the fire behavior of polylactide (PLA), a bio-based polymer. Lignin and cellulose were chosen as pristine compounds. These compounds have been transformed into nanoparticles with adapted processes. Then, they were functionalized with phosphorous moieties or mixed with ammonium polyphosphate, and incorporated into polylactide with in internal mixer. Thermal, flammability and fire properties of these compounds were evaluated. The results obtained with some systems are promising.

Palladium complexes of bis(di-tert-butylphosphinomethyl)benzene (DTBPMB) show remarkably high activity as alkene methoxycarbonylation catalysts, in addition to numerous other catalytic conversions, and are currently being commercialised by Lucite in ethene methoxycarbonylation to methyl propanoate. Any large-scale exploitation of this catalyst system for heavier products, however, is likely to be hindered by catalyst-product separation problems common to homogeneous catalysts; hence modification of this catalyst system to allow facile product separation was investigated. Tethering of DTBPMB residues onto polystyrene via Suzuki-type coupling of suitable precursors onto bromopolystyrene and boronic acid functionalised polystyrene resins was investigated and the phosphine was successfully immobilised. Phosphination of the resins was not complete however and as such there is concern that other phosphine residues may be present which do not exhibit a bidentate binding motif. The synthesis of a potassium sulfonate derivative of DTBPMB (KBPMBS) was successful and immobilisation of this onto ion exchange resins was also investigated. Some preliminary results from studies into 1-octene methoxycarbonylation using palladium complexes of these resins were obtained. Supporting of this diphosphine onto silica via a sol-gel co-condensation methodology was also investigated; the synthesis of a suitably functionalised precursor containing a sulfonamide linkage was successful via protection of the diphosphine using borane. Although formation of the silica support was successful, attempts to deprotect the phosphine-borane resulted in cleavage of the ligand from the support. An alternative route to this supported ligand was attempted and others discussed. Synthesis of a suitable sol-gel precursor via alkene hydrosilation was also attempted and is discussed. Supporting of the sulfonated phosphine, KBPMBS onto silica functionalised with imidazolium tethered residues was also investigated, although complete leaching of the phosphine from the support by methanol washing was observed. Immobilisation of the synthesised KBPMBS ligand in an ionic liquid (IL) phase was investigated. Complex formation and catalytic activity were demonstrated and a positive effect on conversion was observed upon addition of carbon dioxide to the system; possibly due to the increased CO solubility within the IL phase. Efficient product separation from the IL-immobilised catalyst system was demonstrated, both by organic extraction and using supercritical carbon dioxide flow. However, poor catalyst stability under these conditions appears to present a barrier to recycling this system, with loss of conversion observed on catalyst recycling. Other attempts to immobilise the DTBPMB ligand are discussed and reduction of the sulfide derivative of DTBPMB was demonstrated using hexachlorodisilane, which could be used as a general synthetic strategy for protecting highly electron rich phosphines. It is possible that increasing the bulk of the DTBPMB ligand may increase catalyst stability and result in catalyst systems with higher turnover numbers. Therefore syntheses of bulky ligands based on the DTBPMB backbone were investigated. 1,2,4,5-tetrakis(di(tert-butyl)phosphinomethyl)benzene was successfully synthesised although palladium complexes of this showed no activity in catalytic methoxycarbonylation. Attempts to synthesise a related biphenyl-based tetraphosphine is also discussed, although isolation of this in a pure form was not achieved. Routes toward tetraphenyl and dimethyl-diphenyl functionalised derivatives of DTBPMB have also been explored, although only a monophosphine was isolated due to difficulties in obtaining an intermediate di(chloromethyl) precursor in both synthetic pathways, although this now appears to have been overcome.

Open-framework inorganic materials constitute an important area of study in materials chemistry, because of their potential applications in areas such as sorption and catalysis. After the discovery of nanoporous aluminium phosphates by Flanigen et al in 1982, there has been a tremendous growth in the area of porous solids. Most of them are based upon oxygen containing materials especially phosphates, and they exhibit fascinating architectures with unusual bonding and coordination environment. Besides metal phosphates and phosphites, inorganic-organic hybrids constitute an important family of open-framework structures. In this thesis, results of investigations of a variety of open-framework metal phosphates, metal phosphites, as well as a new family of phosphite-oxalates are presented. More importantly, studies directed towards the synthesis and understanding of the magnetic properties of various transition metal phosphates, phosphites, phosphite-oxalates and the upconversion behavior of uranium phosphites are discussed at length. In Chapter 1 of the thesis an overview of inorganic open-framework materials is presented. In Chapter 2 and 3, the synthesis, structure of open-framework zinc (Part A of both Chapters) and synthesis, structure and magnetic properties of open-framework iron (Part B of both Chapters) are presented. Some of these compounds show unusual structure and interesting properties. For example, two-dimensional iron phosphate exhibits ferrimagnetism whereas three-dimensional iron phosphate with SBU-6 and SBU-2 is antiferromagnetic. The three-dimensional iron phosphite exhibits small polarization at low field. In Chapter 4, we present a new family of organically templated hybrid materials synthesized by partially substituting the phosphite by the oxalate ion in manganese, iron and cobalt phosphites. These exhibit a wide range of structures in which the oxalates play an unusual dual role. Some of these compounds show interesting magnetic properties. For example, manganese phosphite-oxalate shows magnetic polarizations on application of high field at low temperatures and iron phosphite-oxalate exhibit ferromagnetism at very low temperature. While a large number of organically templated transition and main-group element phosphites have been synthesized, research on lanthanide and actinide phosphites has been rare. Most of the reported open-framework phosphate and phosphite compounds of uranium possess uranium in +6 oxidation state. The possibility of building open architectures of uranium phosphites has been explored in Chapter 5. The results have been rewarding and both layered and three-dimensional structures have been prepared. Two of them contain uranium in +4 state and exhibit upconversion behavior.

Dans un contexte de lutte contre la dégradation de notre environnement, les lois et règlementations issues du Grenelle de l'environnement, obligent de trouver des solutions permettant de répondre à des normes tout en remplaçant des composés nocifs. Dans ce souci de respect de l'environnement, certains changements doivent s'opérer dans le domaine de la sécurité contre les incendies, puisqu'actuellement, les systèmes retardateurs de flammes contiennent des composés halogénés. Pour répondre à cette problématique, l'approche choisie a été d'introduire, des composés phosphorés et/ou azotés préalablement greffés ou imprégnés sur de la silice dans différentes matrices polymères. Les composites ont alors été réalisés à l'aide du procédé d'extrusion en introduisant, au sein d'un polypropylène ou d'un polybutylène téréphtalate, un faible taux de charges modifiées ou non, à savoir 10% en masse. Les études morphologique, rhéologique, thermogravimétrique mais également du comportement au feu des composites ont été réalisées et des relations entre toutes ces propriétés ont pu être établies. Dans le cas du polypropylène, l'ajout de silice non traitée a globalement entrainé un meilleur comportement au feu que l'ajout de silices modifiées, ce qui a été expliqué par des différences morphologiques et rhéologiques. Pour le polybutylène téréphatalate, les meilleures propriétés ont été observées lors de l'ajout de silices modifiées par les différents composés phosphorés. Grâce à ces résultats des liens étroits entre type de composé ignifugeant, viscoélasticité, formation d'une couche barrière protectrice et amélioration du comportement au feu ont été mis en évidence / In order to protect our environment, toxic compounds have to be replaced to meet the new regulations as well as industrial standards. Therefore, to be environmental friendly, some solutions have to be found in terms of fire safety, since halogenated compounds are still used in fire retardant systems. The way studied to solve this problem was to add silica fillers modified by phosphorous or nitrogen agents into two polymer matrices (polypropylene and polybutylene terephthalate). Two different techniques were used to modify the silica surface: the first by grafting and the second by impregnation. Only 10% by weight of untreated or modified fillers was introduced into the polymers thanks to extrusion process. Morphology studies, rheological and fire behaviors as well as thermogravimetric analyses were performed on composites and relationship between those properties have been established. In the case of polypropylene, the untreated fillers induce the most significant reduction of peak of Heat Release Rate while the surface modification by phosphorous agents does not lead to the expected effect on the fire behavior of PP composite. The origin of this phenomenon was deeply studied and was related to the difference of morphology and rheological behavior between the several PP composites. Concerning polybutylene terephthalate, the best fire performances were obtained for composites containing phosphorous modified silica. Given these results, relationships between the type of flame-retardant compound, the viscoelasticity, the formation of a fire protective layer and the improvement of fire behavior has been identified