The stereosequence distribution of the “atactic” and “isotactic” fractions of a polypropylene sample made with a MgCl2-supported catalyst was determined by means of high-resolution 13C NMR and analyzed in terms of statistical models of increasing sophistication. Two-site models, including the one normally used for the interpretation of “routine” 13C NMR data at pentad level, were shown to be inconsistent with the much finer high-resolution data. A good agreement between experimental and calculated distributions could be obtained only in terms of a three-site model, describing each fraction as a mixture of highly isotactic, weakly isotactic (“isotactoid”) and syndiotactic sequences. According to such model, the two fractions comprise the same three building blocks (the configuration of the three different types of stereosequences being almost invariant) and differ merely in their relative amounts (which indicates a stereoblock nature). The correlations with the physical properties of the materials and the implications on the nature of the catalytic species are also briefly discussed.

The effects of regiochemical and stereochemical errors on the kinetic course of isotactic propene polyinsertion promoted by two typical homogeneous metallocene catalysts are analyzed in detail. It is shown, in particular, that occasional regioirregular 2,1 insertions not only slow down chain propagation to a substantial extent-as already reported in a preliminary communication-but also practically inhibit chain transfer to the monomer and to the aluminum alkyl cocatalyst. Active centers bearing a growing chain with a 2,1 last-inserted propene unit are therefore trapped in a "dormant" state, in which the only feasible alternative to the formation of a sterically demanding head-to-head enchainment, at least at sufficiently high reaction temperatures, is 2,1 to 1,3 isomerization. Experimental data suggesting that chain propagation is hindered after a stereoirregular monomer insertion are also discussed.

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The propene/ethene-[1-13 C] copolymerization method has been applied to measure precisely the regioselectivity in propene polymerization of the "simple" MgCl2/TiCl4 catalyst (activated with Al( i -Bu)3), which can be viewed as the ancestor of all present-day MgCl2-supported industrial catalysts containing Lewis bases as selective modifiers. It has been found that the average content of 2,1regiomistakes in the polypropylene produced is fairly high (ca. 0.7 mol %), althoughsnot unexpectedly, due to the multisite catalyst naturesthese are distributed rather nonuniformly throughout the polymer. The difficulty in detecting the 2,1-units, despite their relatively high concentration, in the 13 C NMR spectra of homopolymer samples at natural 13 C abundance has been traced to their occurrence in a variety of stereochemical environments, which leads to splitting and broadening of the corresponding resonances. The fraction of "dormant" polypropylene chains with a 2,1-last-inserted unit was estimated to be in the 20-50% range. QM calculations of regioselectivity on classical Corradini-type models of epitactic octahedral catalytic Ti species turned out to be in basic agreement with the experiment.