Narrow tacticity distribution

Narrow tacticity distribution Low extractables Food packaging... 

Homogeneous catalysts, in which each catalytic center is identical, give polymers having very narrow molecular weight and tacticity distribution and, in the case of copolymers, random comonomer incorporation. The latter feature is particularly important in polymers such as LLDPE, while a uniform stereo-or regiodefect distribution in PP can give improved optical and barrier properties. However, utilization of... 

The initial use of analytical TREF was to characterize polyethylene fractions [120]. Mirabella and Ford used TREF to fractionate LDPE and LLDPE for further characterization using SEC, X-ray C-NMR, DSC and viscosity measurements [121]. These investigators determined that the melting behavior of LLDPE correlated well with a multimodal SCB distribution and the distribution became narrower with increasing molecular weight. Mingozzi and collaborators [122] have applied both analytical and preparative TREF to the analysis of tacticity distribution in polypropylene. The results showed that both methods could be used successfully analytical TREF gave faster qualitative results on the polymer microstructure, while preparative TREF, with subsequent analysis of the fractions, could yield detailed quantitative tacticity information. Hazlitt has described an automatic TREF instrument to measure SCB distributions for ethylene/ a-olefin copolymers [123]. 

Polystyrene produced by free-radical polymerisation techniques is part syndio-tactic and part atactic in structure and therefore amorphous. In 1955 Natta and his co-workers reported the preparation of substantially isotactic polystyrene using aluminium alkyl-titanium halide catalyst complexes. Similar systems were also patented by Ziegler at about the same time. The use of n-butyl-lithium as a catalyst has been described. Whereas at room temperature atactic polymers are produced, polymerisation at -30°C leads to isotactic polymer, with a narrow molecular weight distribution. 

In this stage of the investigation, poly(methyl methacrylates) (PMMAs) were selected as the polymeric probes of intermediate polarity. Polymers of medium broad molar mass distribution and of low tacticity (14) were a gift of Dr. W. Wunderlich of Rohm Co., Darmstadt, Germany. Their molar masses ranged from 1.6 X 10" to 6.13 X 10 g-mol. For some comparative tests, narrow polystyrene standards from Pressure Co. (Pittsburgh, PA) were used. 

In the past decade, our group at Penn State has been focusing on a functionalization approach by the combination of metallocene catalysts and reactive comonomers. The chemistry takes the advantage of metallocene catalyst with a tunable single active site to prepare polyolefin copolymers with narrow molecular weight and composition distributions, high catalyst activities, and predictable tacticities and copolymer compositions. 

SEC is routinely used to produce narrow distribution samples by fractionation. However, even with preparative SEC columns the procedure is not particularly effective, and many repeated fractionations are required to produce more than milligram samples. Nevertheless, such samples are invaluable in crystallization-rate [70] and other studies where molecular mass exclusion is very important. Coupling molecular mass with temperature-rising elution fractionation, in which molecular species separate by composition, in copolymers, or by degree of branching and tacticity, in homopolymers, makes this a most important method for separating molecular mass and chemical effects in crystallization studies [17]. 

Liquori et al. [23] first discovered that isotactic and syndiotactic PMMA chains form a crystalline stereocomplex. A number of authors have since studied this phenomenon [24]. Buter et al. [25,26] reported the formation of an in situ complex during stereospecific replica polymerization of methyl methacrylate in the presence of preformed isotactic or syndiotactic PMMA. Hatada et al. [24] reported a detailed study of the complex formation, using highly stereoregular PMMA polymers with narrow molecular weight distribution. The effect of tacticity on the characteristics of Langmuir-Blodgett films of PMMA and the stereocomplex between isotactic and syndiotactic PMMA in such monolayers at the air-water interface have been reported in a series of papers by Brinkhuis and Schouten [27,27a]. Similar to this system, Hatada et al. [28] reported stereocomplex formation in solution and in the bulk between isotactic polymers of / -(+)- and S-(—)-a-methylbenzyl methacrylates. 

The Dow Chemical Company recently developed new catalyst systems which allow copolymerization of propylene with ethylene comonomer having high molecular weight and controlled tacticity. These copolymers have relatively narrow molecular weight distributions and unique molecular architectures. Low crystallinity P/E copolymers with 17 to 19 mole % ethylene were shown to exhibit elastomeric properties with uniform deformation and high recovery from large strains. ... 

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