Investigation of the stereodefect distribution and conformational behavior of isotactic polypropylene polymerized with different Ziegler-Natta catalysts

Two isotactic polypropylene (iPP) samples (PP-A and PP-B) were obtained by utilizing two different heterogeneous ZieglerNatta catalysts in a given polymerization system. The molecular structure and conformational behavior of the samples were studied. The results of determination of xylene soluble material (XS) and 13C NMR showed that the average isotacticity of the samples were nearly same. However, the results of high-resolution high-temperature 13C NMR (HRHT 13C NMR) and successive self-nucleation and annealing (SSA) fractionation revealed that the amount of high isotacticity of PP-B was lower than that of PP-A, and the amount of relative medium and low isotacticity of PP-B was higher than PP-A, indicating that the stereodefect distribution of PP-B was more uniform than PP-A. The calculation of average meso sequence length from SSA was found to be in good agreement with that calculated from the results of HRHT 13C NMR. Moreover, Fourier transformation infrared was utilized to study the influence of stereodefect distribution on the conformational behavior of iPP. The result suggested that the molecular conformation of the PP-B was more disordered than PP-A, the regularity of molecular structure for PP-B was lower than that of PP-A. The related action mechanism and the influences of which on crystallization behavior were discussed. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012