Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.58, No.32, 14729-14735, 2019
High Throughput Experimentation Protocol for Quantitative Measurements of Regioselectivity in Ziegler-Natta Polypropylene Catalysis
This paper introduces a high throughput experimentation method for fast and accurate evaluations of regioselectivity in Ziegler-Natta (ZN) propene polymerizations. With a simple protocol, the (very low) fraction of regio-irregular 2,1 monomeric units in the polymers can be quantitated by means of C-13 NMR chain-end analyses on single H-2-terminated polypropylene samples. The method, that was successfully validated for three representative ZN catalyst systems, also provides information on catalyst "dormancy" and propensity to undergo chain hydrogenolysis. This opens the door to the rapid and accurate implementation of quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) databases of regioselectivity and "hydrogen response" in this important industrial catalysis.