Recycling of methylaluminoxane (MAO) cocatalyst in ethylene polymerization with supported metallocene catalyst

The economy of the metallocene catalyst system in olefin polymerization depends more on the cost of methylaluminoxane (MAO) cocatalyst rather than on the catalyst cost since high ratio of cocatalyst to catalyst is required to have sufficient activity. The conditions to minimize the consumption of MAO have been studied for the ethylene polymerization with supported metallocene catalyst. By introducing the prepolymerization step, in which the supported metallocene catalyst is activated at high MAO concentration before polymerization, the MAO could be recovered after the prepolymerization and recycled repeatedly for the subsequent activation with marginal decrease in activity. No extra MAO was needed during the main polymerization. The addition of small amount of MAO or less expensive alkylaluminum at each recycle step kept the catalyst activity to the initial level. It compensates the MAO losses occurring both by the incomplete decantation of MAO solution and by the reaction with metallocene complex or impurities. As a result, the actual consumption ratio of Al/Zr in moles in commercial applications could be reduced to about 30 without sacrificing the activity. This value is significantly low considering that conventionally an Al/Zr ratio of 1,000 is required for sufficient activity.