Ethylene/1-hexene copolymerization with TiCl4/MgCl2/AlCl3 catalyst in the presence of hydrogen

A TiCl₄/AlCl₃/MgCl₂ (Cat-B) catalyst containing 5.2 wt.% Al was prepared by the reaction of TiCl₄ with ethanol adduct of AlCl₃/MgCl₂ mixture. A TiCl₄/MgCl₂ catalyst (Cat-A) without doped AlCl₃ was also prepared by the same method. Ethylene-1-hexene copolymerization catalyzed by Cat-B in the presence of hydrogen showed slightly higher efficiency and higher 1-hexene incorporation than Cat-A. Comonomer incorporation was markedly increased when the cocatalyst AlEt₃ was replaced by Al(i-Bu)₃. Adding Ph₂Si(OMe)₂ as external donor in the catalyst system caused decrease in polymerization activity and 1-hexene incorporation. Each copolymer sample was fractionated into three fractions: n-heptane insoluble fraction (fraction A), n-heptane soluble and n-hexane insoluble fraction (fraction B) and n-hexane soluble fraction (fraction C). In most cases the amount of intermediate fraction (fraction B) was smaller than the other fractions and did not increase as the total 1-hexene content increase, indicating the presence of two classes of copolymer fractions with greatly different comonomer content and clear bimodality of the copolymer composition distribution. Doping AlCl₃ in the catalyst, changing cocatalyst and adding external donor mainly changed the weight ratio of fraction A to fraction C, but exerted little influences on their composition. According to the sequence distribution data of the fractions, doping AlCl₃ in the catalyst resulted in slight decrease of product of reactivity ratios (r₁r₂) in both fraction A and fraction C.