Fats and Oils as Renewable Feedstock for the Chemical ... - abiosus

L11New Polymers by Copolymerization of Olefinswith Bio Oil ComponentsWalter KaminskyInstitute for Technical and Macromolecular ChemistryUniversity of Hamburg, Bundesstr. 45, 20146 Hamburg, Germanykaminsky@chemie.uni-hamburg.dePolyolefins are growing faster than most other polymers. In 2006, more than 105 milliontons of polyethylene and polypropylene are produced worldwide. Especially copolymers ofethene and α-olefins (LLDPE) increase rapidly. To have a better compatibility in blendsbetween polyolefins and other plastics such as polyester or polyamids, there is a demandfor polar substituted polyolefins. Long chained α-olefins and olefin esters and ethers canbe obtained from bio oil.The bio oil ester (oleic acid methyl ester) can be converted by metathesis reaction in thepresence of ethene into 1-decene and 9-decenoic acid methyl ester. Both components aresuitable comonomers for the synthesis of polyolefin specialities by copolymerization withethene or propene. For this copolymerization metallocene/methylaluminoxane catalyst orother single site catalysts are more active than classical Ziegler-Natta catalysts becausethey insert higher amounts of longer chained α-olefins or olefins with polar groups. Themicrostructure of these copolymers can be tailored in a great variety using metallocenecomplexes with different symmetries. With these catalysts it is possible to produceisotactic, syndiotactic or atactic polypropylene backbones.By copolymerization of 1-decene from bio oil with ethene, linear low density polyethylene(LLDPE) is obtained with excellent properties. The tensile strength increases with anincreasing number of carbon atoms in the comonomer. Today, 1-octene is the highest 1-olefin used because of industrial availability. This can be changed in using bio oilcomponents. Also copolymers of ethene or propene with olefin esters or ethers from bio oilcan become useful polymers.20