Ethylene-1-hexene copolymerization: New perspective through modeling of supported catalyst active center distribution and microstructure characterization

The effects of catalyst active center distribution on copolymerization activity, polymerization mechanism, catalyst surface chemistry, comonomer and micromixing effects, and selected polymer microstructures were studied. This will eventually add new insight to this subject and broaden our comprehension. No reactor fouling during polymerization was observed. Both copolymers were free-flowing particles, showed good morphology, and replicated the particle size distribution of the corresponding supported catalyst. All these established the occurrence of heterogeneous catalysis in this study. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 22nd Annual Saudi-Japan Symposium on Catalysts in Petroleum Refining and Petrochemicals 2012 (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia 11/25-26/2012).