Contributions to the Experimental Investigation of the Nascent Polymerisation of Ethylene on Supported Catalysts, 2: Influence of Reaction Conditions

A series of experiments in a novel quench flow reactor was used to study the influence of the means of adding TEA to the catalyst, the reaction temperature and the hydrogen concentration on the kinetics and morphology of the nascent phase of the polymerisation of ethylene in heptane slurry. It was shown that regardless of the way in which the alkyl was added, an extremely rapid reaction rate was observed for the first few fractions of a second, but that precontacting the catalyst and the TEA cocatalyst led to a slightly higher initial rate. On the other hand, the nascent morphology of the particle/support complex was strongly influenced by the means of adding the alkyl, with precontacting of the two components leading to a better defined product. The influence of the temperature was found to be less significant; however, this was attributed to the particular catalyst.