Gas phase polymerization of ethylene with a silica‐supported metallocene catalyst: influence of temperature on deactivation

Abstract

Abstract Ethylene was polymerized at 5 bar in a stirred powder bed reactor with silica supported rac ‐Me 2 Si[Ind] 2 ZrCl 2 /methylaluminoxane (MAO) at temperatures between 40°C and 80°C using NaCl as support bed and triethylaluminium (TEA) as a scavenger for impurities. For this fixed recipe and a given charge of catalyst. the average catalyst activity is reproducible within 10% for low temperatures. The polymerization rate and the rate of deactivation increase with increasing temperature. The deactivation could be modeled using a first order dependence with respect to the polymerization rate.