Kinetics Study of Propene Polymerization with Porous Titanium Trichloride

Abstract

Two types of high performance porous titanium trichloride catalysts were prepared. One catalyst(Catalyst A) was converted from the solid obtained by the reduction of titanium tetrachloride with alkylaluminum followed by the treatment with dibuthyl ether and hexachloroethane. The other catalyst(Catalyst B) was prepared from the solid reduced from titanium tetrachloride with alkylaluminum by treating with ether and titanium tetrachloride successively. The kinetics of propene polymerization with these two catalysts were studied and these catalysts compared with ball-milled titanium trichloride catalyst (AA-type titanium trichloride catalyst). Though the properties of polymerization sites on these three types of catalysts are almost the same, the polymerization sites on high performance catalysts were about ten times that on AA-type titanium trichloride catalyst. As a result, porous titanium trichloride catalysts showed higher activities than AA-type titanium trichloride catalyst. Catalyst B suffered from a more significant decrease in activity than Catalyst A. This seems to be due to TiCl₄ which remains in catalyst B and causes deactivation of polymerization sites.