Coordination (co)polymerization of olefins

Introduction Middle 1950s may be treated as the beginning of the age of plastics – their global production in last 60 years have increased from approx. 1.5 mln to almost 290 mln tons. The dominating position in production and consumption of these materials for many years has been occupied by polyolefins (in Europe 48% from 57 mln tons of plastics) [1]. Forecasters predict that in coming years this trend will not change, as produced olefin polymers have wide range of diverse properties while the access to resources is easy and requirements for labour intensity and energy consumption are low, what results in low price. Polyethylene can be produced in the high-pressure process known since 1930s, where pressure of up to 300 MPa and temperature of up to 300°C [2] are applied, and reaction progresses according to radical mechanism. It can be also obtained in medium pressure process with use of Philips chromium catalysts [3]. However, there is no doubt that such crucial role of polyolefins in modern world results mainly from the early 1950s discovery and subsequent commercialization of organometallic Ziegler-Natta catalysts for polymerization of ethylene, propylene and higher olefins. Since then, intensive studies have been carried out both by academic and industrial research centres on development of new organometallic systems of increasing activity and especially of greater controllability over properties of polyolefin products. In these studies researchers from the Department of Chemical Technology and Polymer Chemistry of the Institute of Chemistry and since 2008 of the Faculty of Chemistry of Opole University (till 1994 State Higher Pedagogical College) have been participating almost from the very beginning – first under the guidance of prof. Maria Nowakowska and currently of prof. Krystyna Czaja. At this moment this is the only Polish research centre working in this research field.