A new heterogeneous catalyst for ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) has been prepared by immobilization of [RuCl2(p-cymene)]2 on siliceous mesoporous molecular sieves SBA-15. Activity of the catalyst was tested in ROMP of norbornene.
Filtration test proved that the catalytic activity as bound to the solid phase. Catalyst could be easily separated from reaction mixture in contrast to the corresponding homogeneous system and therefore polymer with reduced amounts of catalyst residues was obtained.