| Abstract: | The influence of different aluminum alkyls (diethylaluminum chloride, triethylaluminum, triisobutylaluminum, tri-n-hexylaluminum, tri-n-octylaluminum and isoprenylaluminum) on the ethylene polymerization activity of a laboratory prepared high-activity SiO2/MgCl2-supported TiCl4 catalyst has been investigated. A slurry reactor (decane diluent) was used for measuring rates of polymerization. The average molar mass, the breadth of the molar mass distribution, the polymerization activity, and the shapes of the activity-time profiles, were strongly dependent on the nature of the aluminum alkyl. For several of the cocatalysts used, the catalytic activity approached a constant value after a certain amount of time under reaction conditions. In this constant activity region, a first-order dependence of the polymerization rate on the monomer concentration was found for all of the systems examined. However, the activation energy of the polymerization reaction was found to depend strongly on the type of cocatalyst which was used. |
