Influence of length branches in PE copolymer nanocomposites by in-situ polymerization

Abstract

Copolymerization of ethylene with small hydrocarbon chains, as hexene, is performed using catalyst Ziegler-Natta or metallocene. Ziegler catalyst has a dominant position in the market, but it has the disadvantage of producing copolymers with inhomogeneous branching distribution in his structure, reducing the mechanical properties. However, metallocene catalyst has unique active site, allowing synthesize polymers with a narrow molecular weight distribution and with homogeneous branching distributions. This advantage it has allowed in recent years the growth in the use of metallocene catalyst for ethylene copolymer synthesis.1 The present study use the sepiolite as filler and support for catalyst system, this fact has effect in the final polymer structure. Consequently this method has many variables to study, because type and distribution of the branches have an important effect in nanocomposite properties. This work was designed to study the influence of the length of branches on the final properties of the co-polymer. Three different co-monomers (hexene, octene and decene) with equal concentration of sepiolite and comonomer were studied.