Ethylene polymerization on polymer supported Ziegler-Natta catalyst

Poly(styrene-co-methyl methacrylate) has been used as a support for titanium based Ziegler–Natta catalyst. We have prepared three polymer supported catalysts by varying the weight ratio of TiCl4 and polymer to perform the ethylene polymerization. Triethylaluminium (TEA) is used as cocatalyst. Catalysts have been characterized by XPS, FT-IR, UV-visible spectroscopy, XRD, pH meter, TGA and SEM-EDX. The catalysts are found to be stable upto 100 °C. Density functional theory (DFT) has been used to elucidate the structure of TiCl4 and the polymer supported complex. All these spectroscopic analysis and density functional study confirm the incorporation of titanium into the polymer matrix. The catalytic activity is found to be in the range of 0.6–1.01 kg of polyethylene (PE)/g Ti/h and the catalytic activity depends on the optimum level of Ti content. The molecular weight (\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ \overline {{M_w}} $$\end{document}) of PE is in the range of 237,300–275,600 g/mol. Present study also reports the stability and storability of the catalysts.Graphical AbstractPoly(styrene-co-methyl methacrylate) has been synthesized via mini emulsion polymerization. This polymer has been used as a support for titanium based Ziegler-Natta catalyst. The incorporation of the TiCl4 moiety into the polymer matrix has been successfully characterized by various spectroscopic, analytic as well as theoretical calculations. The synthesized catalyst has been used for ethylene polymerization in slurry process at 50 °C and atmospheric pressure.[graphic not available: see fulltext]