Addition of a second alcohol in magnesium ethoxide synthesis as a way to vary the pore architecture of Ziegler-Natta catalysts

In Ziegler-Natta olefin polymerization, the pore architecture of catalysts plays a crucial role in catalytic performances and polymer properties. While the type of preparation routes (such as chemical reaction and solution precipitation) greatly affects the catalyst pore architecture as a result of different solidification mechanisms, the modification of the pore architecture within a given route has been hardly achieved. In this study, we propose a simple way to vary the pore architecture of Mg(OEt)2-based Ziegler-Natta catalysts by the addition of a second alcohol. It was found that the addition of a second alcohol during Mg(OEt)2 synthesis affected not only the morphology of Mg(OEt)2 macroparticles but also the shape of building units. The degree of alternation was found to be sensitive to the molecular structure of a second alcohol. Noticeable influences were observed in the case of branched alcohols, where the transformation of plate-like building units to cylindrical ones led to the generation of totally different pore size distributions of resultant catalysts.