Rate and molecular weight distribution modeling of syndiospecific styrene polymerization over silica-supported metallocene catalyst

The kinetics of syndiospecific polymerization of styrene over silica-supported Cp∗Ti(OCH3)3/MAO catalyst has been investigated through experimentation and theoretical modeling. At low monomer concentrations, the polymerization rate increases almost linearly with monomer conversion, but the reaction rate becomes independent of monomer concentration at high bulk phase monomer concentrations. A kinetic model that incorporates the monomer partition effect between the solid and the liquid phases has been proposed. The model simulations show that the observed non-linear kinetics can be adequately modeled by the monomer partition model. The polymer molecular weight has also been found to increase with the monomer concentration and the polymer molecular weight distribution (MWD) is quite broad, suggesting that the catalytic behavior deviates from the single site catalytic polymerization model. The MWD broadening is modeled by a two-site kinetic model and a good agreement between the model and the experimental data has been obtained.