1994 Volume 51 Issue 10 Pages 652-656
Polymerization of styrene (St) with nickel acetylacetonate [Ni (acac) 2] and methylalumoxane (MAO) catalyst was investigated. It was found that the Ni (acac) 2-MAO catalyst showed a high catalytic activity for the polymerization of St. From a kinetic study, the polymerization rate (Rp) can be expressed by Rp=k [St] 2.0 [Ni (acac) 2-MAO] 0.75. The overall activation energy for the polymerization was determined to be 23.4 kJ/mol. The polymers were found to be rich in isotactic sequence. From ESR study, it was assumed that the active sites for the polymerization involve the Ni (I) complex.
