Statistical analysis of parameters involved in the synthesis of polar copolymers using a nickel (II) α-diimine complex

Abstract

In this article, the copolymerization of 1-hexene and butyl acrylate in the presence of a nickel(II) complex (α-diimine nickel (II) catalyst consisting of bulky 2,6-di (isopropyl) phenyl groups as imine substituents and a planar acenaphthyl backbone) as catalyst and methylaluminoxane (MAO) or ethylaluminum sesquichloride (EASC) as activators has been investigated. The main aim of this article is to provide a deep investigation of the effect of the type of activator, polymerization time, temperature, and comonomer content in the reactor feed on activity, comonomer incorporation, and molecular weight of resulting copolymers. Then, a nonlinear regression method was used to fit analytical results to a numeric model, which is very useful for predicting the properties of the final copolymers only by having the polymerization parameters.