Tacticity of poly‐α‐olefins from poly‐1‐hexene to poly‐1‐octadecene

Abstract A systematic study of the influence of the α‐olefin size, the catalyst stereospecificity and the reaction temperature was done on the catalytic activity and tacticity of poly‐α‐olefins from 1‐hexene to 1‐octadecene. The metallocenes used were rac ‐Et[Ind 2 ]ZrCl 2 ( 1 ) and Me 2 C[Cp(9‐Flu)]ZrCl 2 ( 2 ) to obtain isotactic and syndiotactic polyolefins. Some catalysts giving atactic polymers were also used in order to study all the possible 13 C NMR pentades. Catalytic activities increased and isotacticity and syndiotacticity decreased with temperature, but no real trend was found with the α‐olefin size. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 4744–4753, 2005