Metallocenes

Abstract The article contains sections titled: 1. Introduction 2. Polyethylene and Polypropylene 3. Cycloolefin Copolymers 4. Syndiotactic Polystyrene 5. Supporting of Metallocene Catalysts By application of metallocenes a new catalyst family has been introduced into polyolefin production, the most quickly growing market in the polymer industries. The easy modification of the metallocene catalyst structure brought about improvements in catalyst activities, comonomer incorporation, and polymer properties. It became possible to tailor in a wide range the microstructure of polyolefins such as chain length, molecular mass distribution, polypropylene tacticity, and comonomer distribution. Ethylene/oct‐1‐ene and cycloolefin copolymers, syndiotactic or isoblock polypropylenes and syndiotactic polystyrene are some types of new industrially produced polymers. The polyolefins synthesized by metallocene catalysts show a narrow molecular mass distribution of 2 and in some cases long chain branches.