Nowadays, there is a great demand for polybutadiene with high contents of cis groups owing to its excellent physical properties, such as high abrasion resistance and low heat build up. These characteristics make this elastomer one of the most used in pneumatic industry. Thus, this paper presents a brief review about the 1,3-butadiene polymerization by different catalysts systems, with the systems based on lanthanides being the main focus, as they are the most stereospecific for cis-1,4 polymerization of butadiene.
High cis-1,4 polybutadiene; Ziegler-Natta catalyst; neodymium
