Amorphous atactic polypropylene (PP) with an average molecular weight of 50,000-100,000 is produced by polymerizing propylene with a ternary Ti(Oiso-Pr) 4 -AlEt 2 Cl/MgBu 2 catalyst at 30-50. Main advantages of this catalyst compared with other catalysts capable of nearly exclusively producing atactic PP (such as some heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta, metallocene and postmetallocene catalysts) are high activity, low cost and the ease of use: the catalyst is prepared in situ from three commercially available compounds readily soluble in aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons.
The polymerization of ethylene and propylene and the copolymerization of ethylene and hexene-1 with a Ti(O-iso-Pr) 4 -AlR 2 Cl/MgBu 2 catalyst system have been studied. The advantages of this system over metallocene and postmetallocene catalysts are high activity, low cost, and ease of synthesis. The resulting polymers and copolymers are characterized by a broad molecular-mass distribution, which reflects the heterogeneity of the active sites with respect to kinetic parameters. As a consequence, the ethylene/hexene-1 copolymers exhibit compositional heterogeneity. The active sites of the system produce copolymers with a pronounced tendency toward alternation of monomer units. The propylene polymerization product is mostly amorphous atactic polypropylene.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.