A Hemi-metallocene chromium catalyst with trimethylaluminum-free methylaluminoxane for the synthesis of disentangled ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene

Dario Romano, Sara Ronca, Sanjay Rastogi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

Recently, it has been shown that by using a single-site catalytic system having titanium as a metallic center, it is possible to tailor the entanglement density in the amorphous region of a semi-crystalline ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). This route provides the possibility to make high-modulus, high-strength uniaxially and biaxially drawn tapes and fi lms, without using any solvent during processing. In this publication, it is shown that a single-site catalyst having chromium as metallic center, proposed by Enders and co-workers, can also be tuned to provide control on the entanglement density during synthesis of the UHMWPE. However, to achieve the goal some modifi cations during the synthesis are required. The synthesized polymers can be processed in the solid state below the equilibrium melting temperature, resulting in uniaxially drawn tapes having tensile strength and modulus greater than 3.5 N/tex and 200 N/tex, respectively. Rheological studies have been performed to follow the increase in entanglement density in melt state with time.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)327-331
Number of pages5
JournalMacromolecular Rapid Communications
Volume36
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 1 2015

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Generated from Scopus record by KAUST IRTS on 2021-02-16

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