Alternating copolymerization of ethylene and 1‐octene with meso‐[dimethylsilylbis(2‐methyl‐1‐indenyl)]zirconium dichloride‐methylaluminoxane as catalyst system

Copolymerizations of ethylene and α‐olefins with homogeneous metallocene catalysts generally give the corresponding random copolymers with narrow molecular mass distributions. In this study, we have conducted the copolymerization of ethylene and 1‐octene with the meso‐Me2Si(2‐Me‐1‐Ind)2ZrCl2‐methylaluminoxane (MAO) catalyst system, and analyzed the microstructure of the resulting copolymers in detail. The content of the alternating [EO] sequence increases markedly with an increase in the feed ratio of 1‐octene to ethylene, reaching over 95% under appropriate copolymerization conditions. We have thus succeeded in preparing the first sample of alternating olefin copolymers.