Olefin polymerization Propylene-based polymers

The next major commodity plastic worth discussing is polypropylene. Polypropylene is a thermoplastic, crystalline resin. Its production technology is based on Ziegler s discovery in 1953 of metal alkyl-transition metal halide olefin polymerization catalysts. These are heterogeneous coordination systems that produce resin by stereo specific polymerization of propylene. Stereoregular polymers characteristically have monomeric units arranged in orderly periodic steric configuration. 

Coordination polymerization Can engineer polymers with specific tacticities based on the catalyst system Can limit branching reactions Polymerization can occur at low pressures and modest temperatures Otherwise non-polymerizable monomers (e.g., propylene) can be polymerized Mainly applicable to olefinic monomers... 

In 1962. Natta and Zambelli reported a heterogeneous. vanadium-based catalyst mixture which produced partially syndiotactic polypropylene at low polymerization temperatures. " The regiochemistry of the insertion was determined to be a 2.1-insertion of propylene, and a chain-end control mechanism determined the s mdiospecificity of monomer insertion. This catalyst system suffered from both low activity and low stereoselectivity. Highly active single-site olefin polymerization catalysts have now been discovered that make syndiotactic polypropylene with nearly perfect stereochemistry. Catalysts of two different symmetry classes have been used to make the polymer, with Cs-symmetric catalysts typically outperforming their Q -symmetric counterparts due to different mechanisms of stereocontrol (Figure 10). 

Suzuki and Suga reported the use of clays as solid acids to support and activate metallocene catalysts for olefin polymerization. They were able to use much less alkylaluminmn cocatalyst relative to solution polymerization conditions. The clays were slurried with AlMeg in toluene, then treated with a solution containing zirconocene dichloride, II, and AIMeg. The metallocenium cation was presumed formed via abstraction of chloride and/or methyl ligands by acidic sites on the surface of the clay, and the low basicity of the clay smface was proposed to stabilize the coordinatively unsaturated cation. Propylene was copolymerized with 250 psi ethylene at 70°C. For acid-treated KIO montmorillonite, an activity of 3300 X 10 kg polymer/(g Zr h) was obtained. Catalysts based on vermiculite, kaolin, and synthetic hectorite all showed lower but still appreciable activities. In this brief report, the Al/Zr ratio was not specified, and the clay dispersion was not reported. 

In the absence of hydrogen, metallocene-based catalyst systems produce well-defined polymers which are olefin- or aluminum-terminated. Miilhaupt has polymerized propylene with a chiral metallocene and MAO under conditions where P-hydrogen elimination was the predominant chain transfer process. In a post-polymerization functionalization, the olefin endgroups of the highly isotactic polypropylene chains were converted to bromo-, epoxy-, anhydride-, ester-, amine-, carboxylic acid-, silane-, borane-, hydroxy-, thiol-terminated polymers as intermediates for the preparation of block copolymers. Using olefin-terminated atactic and isotactic polypropylene formed with MAO-activated Cp2ZrCl2 and (EBTHI)ZrCl2 Shiono has synthesized amine- and aluminum-terminated polymers." ... 

Ethylene reacts by addition to many inexpensive reagents such as water, chlorine, hydrogen chloride, and oxygen to produce valuable chemicals. It can be initiated by free radicals or by coordination catalysts to produce polyethylene, the largest-volume thermoplastic polymer. It can also be copolymerized with other olefins producing polymers with improved properties. Eor example, when ethylene is polymerized with propylene, a thermoplastic elastomer is obtained. Eigure 7-1 illustrates the most important chemicals based on ethylene. 

Ethylene is conveniently polymerized in the laboratory at atmospheric pressure using a titanium-based coordination catalyst [34]. It may also be polymerized less conveniently in the laboratory under high pressures using free radical catalysts at high and low temperatures [35-37]. Other olefins such as propylene, 1-butene, or 1-pentene homopolymerize free radically only to low molecular weight polymers and require ionic or coordination catalysts to afford high molecu-... 

The vacant sixth coordination site of these Ti centres can take up an olefin molecule to form the reaction complex required for the initiation and subsequent growth of polyolefin chains. Due to their octahedral dichelate-type structure, these Ti(III) centres are chiral and thus able to steer each incoming molecule into a preferred enantiofacial orientation. The stereospecificity with which subsequent propylene units insert into the growing polymer chain is most likely based on a mechanism analogous to that determined for soluble polymerization catalysts (Section 7.4.3). 

For the propylene polymerization catalyzed by the complexes 1-7 (Scheme 2) the simulations were performed [27] based on the calculated energetics of the elementary reactions [ 13c-d]. For system 6 of Scheme 2, the calculated average number of branches is 238 br./lOO C, which is slightly larger than the experimental value of 213 br./lOO C. However, the temperature and pressure dependence of the number of branches and the polymer microstructure are in-line with experimental observations [21] 1) an increase in polymerization temperature leads to a decrease in the number of branches 2) olefin pressure does not affect the branching number, but affects the topology, leading to hyperbranched structures at lowp. 

A proprietary polymerization process, developed in the mid 1960s by staff researchers of Eastman Chemical Products, produces copolymers of 1-olefins that give a degree of crystallinity normally obtained only with homopolymers. The term polyallomer was coined to identify the polymers manufactured by this process and to distinguish them from conventional copolymers. The polyallomer materials available today are based on block copolymers of propylene and ethylene. 

Based on experimental evidence obtained with the above catalysts, it was concluded by Miyake et al., that the isotactic propylene polymerization with zirconium catalysts takes place by a regiose-lective 1,2-insertion of the propylene monomer into the metal-polymer bond [294]. Monomer insertion is believed to take place at two active sites on the metal center in an alternating manner. In addition, it was shown [295] that the substituents on the cyclopentadiene rings determine the conformatiOTi of the polymer chain end, and the fixed polymer chain end conformation in turn determines the stereochemistry of olefin insertion in the transitimi state as a form of indirect steric control. 

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