Preface
Fifty years after the Nobel Prize was awarded to Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta in
1963, the polymerization of olefins by metallorganic catalysts has grown to one of
the most fascinating areas in academic and industrial polymer science and now has
the largest use in polymer production. Ziegler had discovered 10 years earlier that a
mixture of transition metal compounds, especially titanium chlorides and aluminum
alkyls, was able to polymerize ethene by an insertion reaction. This spectacular
milestone was expanded a year later when Natta prepared and characterized
isotactic polypropylene and introduced stereospecific polymerization. In contrast
to the high-pressure ethene polymerization invented in 1935 by ICI (Imperial
Chemical Industries, Great Britain), the catalyzed olefin polymerization requires
only low pressure and low temperature.
Today, more than 130 million tons of polyolefins are produced worldwide per
year, the major part with the help of Ziegler–Natta catalysts. Polyolefins have
changed the world! They are not only the polymers with the highest production
volume, but they also show an unbroken production increase. Containing only
carbon and hydrogen atoms, polyolefins are sustainable materials, light in weight,
and offer a wide variety of properties. The production requires only easily available
and nontoxic monomers and proceeds with almost no losses or side reactions. After
their end of use, polyolefins can easily be recycled through mechanical procedures
to simple articles, by pyrolysis to gas and oil, or by incineration to energy.
In recent decades, new generations of catalysts with higher activities and
stereospecificities and modern production processes have been invented to produce
a great variety of polyolefins ranging from high density polyethylene (HDPE) to
linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), high melting polypropylene, high modulus polyolefin fibers, ethene–propene rubber (EPR), ethene–propene–diene monomer rubber (EPDM). The chromium-based Phillips catalysts opened the field of gas
phase polymerization for HDPE. New supported Ziegler–Natta catalysts make it
possible to increase the activity, to control the morphology, and for polypropylene
to increase the isotacticity by adding different kinds of donors.
A great development in this research field was the discovery of metallocene and
other transition metal complexes activated by methylaluminoxane. These catalysts
v
Fifty years after the Nobel Prize was awarded to Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta in
1963, the polymerization of olefins by metallorganic catalysts has grown to one of
the most fascinating areas in academic and industrial polymer science and now has
the largest use in polymer production. Ziegler had discovered 10 years earlier that a
mixture of transition metal compounds, especially titanium chlorides and aluminum
alkyls, was able to polymerize ethene by an insertion reaction. This spectacular
milestone was expanded a year later when Natta prepared and characterized
isotactic polypropylene and introduced stereospecific polymerization. In contrast
to the high-pressure ethene polymerization invented in 1935 by ICI (Imperial
Chemical Industries, Great Britain), the catalyzed olefin polymerization requires
only low pressure and low temperature.
Today, more than 130 million tons of polyolefins are produced worldwide per
year, the major part with the help of Ziegler–Natta catalysts. Polyolefins have
changed the world! They are not only the polymers with the highest production
volume, but they also show an unbroken production increase. Containing only
carbon and hydrogen atoms, polyolefins are sustainable materials, light in weight,
and offer a wide variety of properties. The production requires only easily available
and nontoxic monomers and proceeds with almost no losses or side reactions. After
their end of use, polyolefins can easily be recycled through mechanical procedures
to simple articles, by pyrolysis to gas and oil, or by incineration to energy.
In recent decades, new generations of catalysts with higher activities and
stereospecificities and modern production processes have been invented to produce
a great variety of polyolefins ranging from high density polyethylene (HDPE) to
linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE), high melting polypropylene, high modulus polyolefin fibers, ethene–propene rubber (EPR), ethene–propene–diene monomer rubber (EPDM). The chromium-based Phillips catalysts opened the field of gas
phase polymerization for HDPE. New supported Ziegler–Natta catalysts make it
possible to increase the activity, to control the morphology, and for polypropylene
to increase the isotacticity by adding different kinds of donors.
A great development in this research field was the discovery of metallocene and
other transition metal complexes activated by methylaluminoxane. These catalysts
v