Efficient synthesis of the cyclo-olefin copolymers at high temperature and pressure in a homogeneous mini-tubular reactor

Ethylene-norbornene copolymer (ENC) is one of the most representative cyclo-olefin copolymer (COC). Both the amorphous and semi-crystalline ENCs were efficiently synthesized by the homogeneous solution copolymerization of ethylene (E) and norbornene (NB) using rac-Et(Ind)2ZrCl2/triisobutylaluminium/(Ph3C)B(C6F5)4 ternary catalyst system in a visualized mini-tubular reactor under high temperature (90–130 °C) and given pressure (24 bar). An ultra-high activity of 7.6 × 10⁸ g/(molZr h), as well as considerable efficiency of 14.1 kgENC/gZr was achieved in time of only 30 s at E/NB molar ratio of 3:1. Moreover, a quench-labeling method using 2-thiophenecarbonyl chloride (TPCC) was adopted to calculate the high proportion of active center [C*]/[Zr]. The novel strategy was proposed for preparation of the block semi-crystalline ENC elastomers with excellent tensile performance and high transparency via reversible chain transfer based on spatiotemporal concentration distribution in a mini-tubular reactor.