Monomer effect on the chain transfer by diethyl zinc in olefin polymerization by metallocene catalysts

The present paper systematically studies the homo- and copolymerization of ethylene or propylene using metallocene as catalyst and diethyl zinc as chain transfer agent to obtain the polyolefin waxes with narrow molecular weight distribution and with a high activity. The molecular weight of the resultant polymer could be controllable by the concentration of diethyl zinc quantitatively. The introduction of a-olefin into the ethylene polymerization system would shield the chain transfer action, and the shielding effect in propylene (co) polymerization is more serious, due to the mass transfer resistance of the substituents on the monomers. Branched comonomer and long chain comonomer provide stronger shielding effect. The regression results show that the order of the chain transfer reaction of propylene polymerization is smaller than that of ethylene polymerization, and the order of the chain transfer reaction of copolymerization is less than that of homopolymerization. It indicates that the substituent on the monomer would result in the deviation of the regression data from the ideal primary reaction order.