The influence of the oxygen donor capacity of polystearylmethacrylate over polyethylene bulk density when using modified methylaluminoxane as co-catalyst

I n this work, the interaction between a polystearylmethacrylate (Mn = 8,900 g mol-1, Xn = 26, Ð = 1.1) and modified methylaluminoxane 12 (MMAO-12) co-catalyst is studied using different spectroscopic methods. The effect of this oxygen-donor additive was measured by the changes in the bulk density of the raw polyethylene, which resulted increased respect to those obtained in blank reactions. A decrease in the activity was also observed as a penalty for the improvement of the bulk density, enhancing the possibility of reducing fouling. The coordination of the carbonyl oxygen groups of polystearylmethacrylate to aluminum (III) centers is confirmed by 1 H-NMR and FTIR studies, and by a simple semi-empirical computational calculation. A method for obtaining a tri-component co-catalyst mixture is described using the methyl-bridging capacity of trimethylaluminum and its Lewis acidity to get the polystearylmethacrylate and MMAO-12 linked together. This robust adduct introduces a hierarchy over the PE chain growing, leading to higher bulk densities for PE beads (0.43 g cm^-3) concerning blank reactions (0.26 g cm^-3).