Temperature rising elution fractionation of a random ethene/styrene copolymer

Abstract

A random ethene/styrene copolymer containing 13.8 mol-% styrene was prepared with the Ziegler-Natta catalyst system Me2Si(Me4Cp)(N-t-butyl)TiCl2/methylaluminoxane and characterized by means of preparative temperature rising elution fractionation (TREF) combined with size exclusion chromatography, NMR, differential scanning calorimetry and wide-angle X-ray scattering analyses of the copolymer fractions. Efforts are made to describe the distribution of the styrene content of the copolymers using the Stockmayer-Tacx distribution function. Both, comonomer distribution and molar mass distribution strongly support the presence of a single type of catalytically active center.