SYNOPSISPolyolefinic oils obtained from olefin oligomerization or copolymerization involve the most common synthetic hydrocarbon oils. Research and experimental results concerning high viscosity index synthetic polyolefinic oils and viscosity index improvers' production by ethylene-propylene copolymer (EPR) and thermal destruction of EPRs noted for various molecular weight and composition resulted in high viscosity index polyolefinic oils and thickeners. The effect of structure, composition, and molecular weight on the destruction process has been discussed for various EPRs. The resulting polyolefinic oils and viscosity index improvers were studied. 0 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
I NTRODUCTIO NWhen petroleum oils cannot meet the increasing demands upon modern motor oils, synthetic and semisynthetic oils may be used.'-3 The application of these oils is intended for the producing of allweather oils with extremely low volatility, which contributes to lowering of oil consumption approximately by a factor of two. ' Usually, motor oil bases are prepared from polyolefin and ester mixtures.' The composition of polyolefin oils is similar to that of high-purity paraffin oils. The length of the main carbon chain and the side-chain position provide good viscosity and temperature characteristics. High thermostability and low volatility are inherent in polyolefin oils. Commercial oils of a such basis correspond to the oil classification of I S 0 VG and range from 5 to Polyolefinic oils are usually obtained by polymerization of high molecular olefins with the number of carbon atoms of C8-Cl0. The production of polyolefinic oils based on petroleum gases (ethylene and propylene ) is extremely promising, because the lack of petroleum raw material makes them the only source of providing industry with lubricant mate-1000.~ * To whom correspondence should be addressed.
EXPERIMENTALEthylene-propylene copolymer was synthesized over Ziegler-Natta organometallic catalytic systems in liquid propylene as the Production of additives and lubricating oils on its basis was discussed in Refs. 6-8. In ethylene-propylene copolymer synthesis the following systems were used vanadium triacetyl acetonate + diisobutyl aluminum chloride [ (ACAC)~V + Al( iC4H9)&1] and vanadyl trichloride + diethyl aluminum chloride [V0Cl3 + A1 (C,H,),Cl]. High-purity ethylene and propylene (99.0 and 99.6 vol %, respectively) were used as reactants.The copolymerization process was carried out in a 7 L bench-scale batch reactor and in a continuous pilot plant with a capacity of 20 kg/ h. The copolymer samples thus obtained contained from 25 to 60 mol % of propylene units and exhibited elastomeric properties and viscosity-average molecular weight ( M u ) of 30,000-500,000. Thermal destruction of EPR was carried out in a 1.5 L bench-scale glandless batch autoclave equipped with an electric heater, a stirrer, and a temperature and residual pressure controller.The autoclave was charged with 0.7 kg of lump polymer and heated a t a rate of 3-5"C/min. The 1409 1410 SEYIDOV ET...