Kinetic and microstructure studies of poly(ethylene-co-p-methylstyrene) copolymers prepared by metallocene catalysts with constrained ligand geometry

Abstract

This paper discusses the poly(ethylene-co-p-methylstyrene) copolymers prepared by metallocene catalysts, such as Et(Ind) 2 ZrCl 2 and [C 5 Me 4 (SiMe 2 N t Bu)]-TiCl 2 , with constrained ligand geometry. The copolymerization reaction was examined by comonomer reactivity (reactivity ratio and comonomer conversion versus time), copolymer microstructure (DSC and 13 C-NMR analyses) and the comparisons between p-methylstyrene and other styrene-derivatives (styrene, o-methylstyrene and m-methylstyrene). The combined experimental results clearly show that p-methylstyrene performs distinctively better than styrene and its derivatives, due to the cationic coordination mechanism and spatially opened catalytic site in metallocene catalysts with constrained ligand geometry. A broad composition range of random poly(ethylene-co-p-methylstyrene) copolymers were prepared with narrow molecular weight and composition distributions. With the increase of p-methylstyrene concentration, poly(ethylene-co-p-methylstyrene) copolymer shows systematical decrease of melting point and crystallinity and increase of glass transition temperature. At above 10 mol % of p-methylstyrene, the crystallinity of copolymer almost completely disappears.