As a new thermosetting polymer with excellent mechanical properties, polydicyclopentadiene (PDCPD) which often produced by reaction injection molding (RIM) has received many interests. Before polymerization, enough pot life should be necessary for mixing and injecting processes. The advantages and disadvantages of different catalytic systems used in RIM are described in the paper. Furthermore, the development of latent Grubbs catalyst is dominantly reviewed. Latent catalysts which attack more attention in the industry exhibit no activity in the presence of monomer or substrate under room temperature, but can be triggered quantitatively to a highly activation by thermal, chemical or photochemical activation to initiate the metathesis reaction. The catalyst structure and proprieties as well as the mechanism are also discussed. The introduction of chelating structure and heteroatom such as O, N, S, both reduce the initiation rate of catalyst, lead to the improvement of latent performance. However, this also has negative impact on the activity of catalyst. Besides that, we focus on the impact of ligand’ structure on the properties, so as to gain ideal latent catalyst with good performance of latenty, but not with the cost of catalyst’s activities. The research in the copolymer of dicyclopentadiene is also described. At last, the future research in the area is prospected. Contents
1 Introduction of polydicyclopentadiene
2 RIM of DCPD
3 Catalyst system used in the RIM of DCPD
3.1 Classical catalysts
3.2 Carbene catalysts
3.3 Grubbs catalysts
4 Modified of PDCPD
5 Conclusion and outlook