Synthesis of Ziegler-Natta catalysts containing SiCl4/TEOS/TiCl4/MgCl2 for ethylene/1-hexene copolymerization

Abstract

Polyethylene (PE) is still worldwide manufacturing, and its most productivity is in Asia. The main categories of PE including high density polyethylene (HDPE), low density polyethylene (LDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE). Ziegler-Natta catalyst is catalyst that used for α-olefins polymerization and it is widely used in industry because it has good activity with low operating cost. This research studies on synthesized SiCl4/TEOS/TiCl4/MgCl2 Ziegler-Natta catalyst in ethylene/1-hexene copolymerization with added silicon compounds,including tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) and SiCl4, used as additive in catalyst by varying 1-hexene comonomer at 0%, 3% and 5%. This research is separated into 2 parts, the first one is comparison comonomer insertion and activity between TEOS and SiCl4. The results indicated that SiCl4 addition in cat AS had better comonomer insertion and activity than cat AT that TEOS added. The second part of this research is studied about the synergistic effect of mixed silicon compound between TEOS and SiCl4 and vary TEOS/Mg. The synthesized catalyst in this part including cat ATS, which is mol ratio of silicon compound is the same as first part and cat ATS 0.15 and cat ATS 0.20 were TEOS/Mg = 0.15 and TEOS/Mg = 0.20. The polymerization by using cat ATS 0.20 illustrated that it is the best comonomer insertion and activity.