Issue 19, 2021, Issue in Progress
From the journal:

RSC Advances

Synthesis of zirconocene complexes and their use in slurry-phase polymerisation of ethylene†

Phakpoom Angpanitcharoen,a   Jessica V. Lamb,a   Jean-Charles Buffet, ORCID logo a   Zoë R. Turner ORCID logo a  and  Dermot O'Hare ORCID logo *a  

* Corresponding authors

a Chemistry Research Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, UK
E-mail: Dermot.ohare@chem.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

A new family of zirconocene complexes of the type (3-RInd#)2ZrX2 (where Ind# = C6Me5H and R = Me, Et and Ph) have been synthesised and fully characterised. Six new crystal structures have been reported (meso-(3-EtInd#)2ZrBr2, rac-(3-EtInd#)2ZrCl2, rac-(3-EtInd#)2Zr(CH2Ph)2, meso-(3-EtInd#)2Zr(CH2Ph)2, meso-(3-MeInd#)2ZrBr2 and meso-(3-MeInd#)2Zr(CH2Ph)2). The complexes were studied for slurry-phase ethylene polymerisation when immobilised on solid polymethylaluminoxane (sMAO). Variation in the initiation group was found to have greater influence over polymerisation activity for meso-catalysts than rac-catalysts, with meso-alkyl catalysts showing higher polymerisation activities than meso-halide. Below 70 °C, polymerisation activity follows the order sMAO-meso-(3-EtInd#)2Zr(CH2Ph)2, sMAO-meso-(3-EtInd#)2ZrCl2 and sMAO-meso-(3-EtInd#)2ZrBr2 (activities of 657, 561, and 452 kgPE molM−1 h−1 bar−1, respectively). sMAO-meso-(3-EtInd#)2ZrBr2 produces HDPE with the highest molecular weight, followed by sMAO-meso-(3-EtInd#)2ZrCl2 and sMAO-meso-(3-EtInd#)2Zr(CH2Ph)2 (Mw of 503, 406, and 345 kg mol−1, respectively, at 50 °C). sMAO-meso-(3-MeInd#)2ZrBr2 produced HDPE with almost identical molecular weights to sMAO-meso-(3-EtInd#)2ZrCl2 (395 kg mol−1 at 50 °C).

Graphical abstract: Synthesis of zirconocene complexes and their use in slurry-phase polymerisation of ethylene

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/D1RA01912K
Article type
Paper
Submitted
10 Mar 2021
Accepted
11 Mar 2021
First published
19 Mar 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

RSC Adv., 2021,11, 11529-11535

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Synthesis of zirconocene complexes and their use in slurry-phase polymerisation of ethylene

P. Angpanitcharoen, J. V. Lamb, J. Buffet, Z. R. Turner and D. O'Hare, RSC Adv., 2021, 11, 11529 DOI: 10.1039/D1RA01912K

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