Accelerating the Research Approach to Ziegler-Natta Catalysts

Despite 60 years of history and a stunning success, Ti-based Ziegler-Natta catalysts for the production of isotactic polypropylene remain black-box systems, and progress still relies on trial and error. This represents a limitation in a moment when the most widely used industrial systems, containing phthalates as selective modifiers, need to be replaced because of a recent REACH ban. In-view of the great complexity of the chemical and physical variables and the heavy nonlinearity of their effects, a high-/medium-throughput approach to this catalysis is highly desirable; herein we introduce an integrated medium-throughput workflow spanning from propene polymerization to polypropylene micro structural characterization and combining a 10(2)-fold throughput intensification with quality standards equal or higher than conventional methods.