Analysis of Slurry-Phase Co-Polymerization of Ethylene and 1-Butene by Ziegler-Natta Catalysts Part 1: Experimental Activity Profiles

A rigorous method is developed to extract kinetic parameters describing catalyst activity from experimental polymerization rate profiles for Ziegler-Natta catalysts. The kinetic scheme used correlates the oxidation state with catalyst activity, eliminating the need for multiple site types to describe rate profiles. The method is applied to data from kinetic experiments performed in a lab-scale semi-batch reactor. Four parameters are required to describe the activity of the catalyst: the polymerization rate constant and three site transformation rate constants. The model is able to reproduce changes in the rate profiles in response to reactant concentrations. The fits of the model to the data are comparable to those in similar studies.