Development of low isotactic polyolefin

Abstract

Polymeric material development has made great progress owing to the innovations in catalyst technology for polymerization. In recent years, the use of polyolefins has been expected to expand to various applications as substitutions for materials such as metal, paper and wood. Therefore, metallocene catalysts are a key technology for producing high-performance polyolefins specifically designed for a given application. In this report, we present a novel polypropylene (low modulus polypropylene: LMPP) with low isotacticity and high molecular weight, and which is synthesized using specific C2-symmetric doubly bridged metallocene complexes. LMPP possesses some isotactic sequences in stereorandom order, and its tacticity can be precisely controlled through the design of the metallocene catalysts. LMPP can be provided as pellets and be applicable to hot melt adhesives, elastic fibers, nonwoven fabrics and so on, because of its unique elastomeric properties and excellent compatibility with isotactic polypropylene.