On‐line monitoring and fingerprint technology: new tools for the development of new catalysts and polyolefin materials

Abstract

The High‐Output Polymer Screening (HOPS) combines process‐relevant automated reactor systems and rapid polymer characterization with on‐line polymerization monitoring and automated data acquisition (“electronic notebook”) in order to make effective use of advanced data mining tools. This has led to the development of fingerprint technology based upon correlations between spectroscopic data and polymerization process conditions, catalyst compositions, as well as polymer end‐use properties. Infrared spectroscopic fingerprints proved to be very useful for accelerating polymer analyses including characterization of polymer molecular architectures as well as non‐destructive testing of the mechanical, thermal and other end‐use polymer properties. Such spectroscopic fingerprints represent important components of effective on‐line quality control systems. With ATR‐FT‐IR probes on‐line monitoring of catalytic olefin copolymerization was performed in solution to measure in real time copolymerization kinetics, catalyst productivities, catalyst deactivation as well as copolymerization parameters and copolymer sequence distributions. Monomer consumption and comonomer incorporation were monitored simultaneously. Advanced fingerprint technology can reduce significantly the need for time‐ and money consuming polymer testing and can also stimulate the search for new catalyst systems and polymeric materials.

Defined Comonomer Re‐Feeding During the Metallocene‐Catalyzed Copolymerization of 10‐Undecene‐1‐olate with Propene through FTIR In‐Line Monitoring

“…The metallocene‐catalyzed copolymerization reaction was monitored using a ReactIR TM 4000 in‐line measuring system (Mettler‐Toledo) based on the well‐known ATR technique 1, 2, 11–16. For this, a special diamond ATR probe (Sentinel TM ) was fixed at the bottom of the autoclave.…”

High‐Output Polymer Screening: Exploiting Combinatorial Chemistry and Data Mining Tools in Catalyst and Polymer Development

“…The molecular weight was determined within a range of 60 000 to 1 600 000 g/mol. [39] This correlation is associated with the influence of the degree of branching. With increasing degree of branching both crystallinity and molecular weight decrease.…”