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Dalton Transactions

The international journal for inorganic, organometallic and bioinorganic chemistry



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Dalton Trans., 2009, 8803 - 8810, DOI: 10.1039/b910542p


New application for metallocene catalysts in olefin polymerization

Walter Kaminsky, Andreas Funck and Heinrich Hähnsen


Metallocenes and other transition metal complexes, activated by methylaluminoxane allow the synthesis of polyolefins with a highly defined microstructure, tacticity, and stereoregularity. New copolymers, long chain branched polymers, and polyolefin nanocomposites are produced by these highly active catalysts. A better understanding of the structure of active sites for the olefin polymerization will lead to findings of new and simpler co-catalysts. Ethene or propene can be copolymerized with 1-olefin macromers with chain lengths up to 12000 g mol-1 as well as with cyclic olefins. Polypropenes of high molecular weight and filled with multi-walled carbon nanotubes show exciting new physical and mechanical properties and are prepared by in situ polymerization. These, and other polyolefin specialities, will be new future materials in a wide range of applications.

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