| Abstract: | This article discusses a chemical route to prepare new ethylene/propylene copolymers (EP) containing a terminal reactive group, such as ?‐CH3 and OH. The chemistry involves metallocene‐mediated ethylene/propylene copolymerization in the presence of a consecutive chain transfer agent—a mixture of hydrogen and styrene derivatives carrying a CH3 (p‐MS) or a silane‐protected OH (St‐OSi). The major challenge is to find suitable reaction conditions that can simultaneously carry out effective ethylene/propylene copolymerization and incorporation of the styrenic molecule (St‐f) at the polymer chain end, in other words, altering the St‐f incorporation mode from copolymerization to chain transfer. A systematic study was conducted to examine several metallocene catalyst systems and reaction conditions. Both (C5Me4)SiMe2N(t‐Bu)]TiCl2 and rac‐Et(Ind)2ZrCl2, under certain H2 pressures, were found to be suitable catalyst systems to perform the combined task. A broad range of St‐f terminated EP copolymers (EP‐t‐p‐MS and EP‐t‐St‐OH), with various compositions and molecular weights, have been prepared with polymer molecular weight inversely proportional to the molar ratio of St‐f]/monomer]. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 1858–1872, 2005 |
