Four chromium based oxo-trinuclear carboxylate complexes were prepared by reacting chromium(III) nitrate nonahydrate with acetic acid and substituted carboxylic acids. They were characterized using infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Chromium content of the complexes was determined by titrimetry method. The chromium(III) monochloroacetate complex, [Cr3O(ClCH2COO)6.3H2O]NO3.3H2O in combination with d...

The most commonly used cocatalyst species in Ziegler-Natta catalysts are aluminium alkyls. In this study we aim to find the interaction between aluminium centres of these activators and other components in the ZNC system. Initially we look at binary systems of Al-alkyl/MgCl2 and ternary systems of Al-alkyl/MgCl2/TiCl4, followed by donor containing systems. The aluminium alkyls prove to be very ...

After five decades of largely serendipitous (albeit formidable) progress, catalyst design in Ziegler-Natta olefin polymerization, i.e., the rational implementation of new active species to target predetermined polyolefin architectures, has ultimately become a realistic ambition, thanks to a much deeper fundamental understanding and major advances in the tools of computational chemistry. In this...

Ziegler-Natta catalysis is a very important industrial process for the production of polyolefins. However, the catalysts are not well-understood at the molecular level. Yet, atomic-scale structural information is of pivotal importance for rational catalyst development. We applied a solid-state NMR/density functional theory tandem approach to gain detailed insight into the interactions between t...

Although Ziegler–Natta (ZN) catalysts play a major role in the polyolefin market, true understanding of their properties at molecular level is still missing. In particular, there lack knowledge on electronic Ti sites. Theoretical calculations predict that electron density sites precatalysts correlates with activation energy for olefin insertion Ti-alkyl bond generated these after by Al-alkyls. ...

Ziegler-Natta polymerization catalysts were characterized by a complex of surface- and bulk-sensitive methods (DRIFTS, XPS, ESR, and XAS = XANES + EXAFS). A diffuse-reflectance Fourier-transform IR spectroscopy (DRIFTS) study showed the presence of strong Lewis acid sites in different concentrations and absence of strong basic sites in the polymerization catalysts. X-ray photoelectron spectrosc...