Due to the low profit, the development of general polypropylene (PP) resin, despite the excellent performance of the material, is not optimistic. Spherical PP particles with micro/nano size have an application prospect in the field of 3D printing, which can provide high added value for the PP material, thus the development of the PP industry can be extended. Recently, the professor Zhang’s research team at school of chemistry and chemical engineering reported the relevant research achievement and published an article in top international journals in the fieldof chemical engineering 《Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research》 with topic 《A Submicron Spherical Polypropylene Prepared by Heterogeneous Ziegler − Natta Catalyst》.
The MgCl2 and the Mg(OEt)2 spherical nano carriers were obtained by dissolution and precipitation method, and then the catalyst was prepared after TiCl4 loading. The PP particles with micro/nano size were produced due to the use of the catalyst particles with minimal size. The result of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the carrier, catalyst and PP particles had high degree and good single dispersion. In addition, spherical PP particles with submicron size could be prepared by using the nano-sized spherical MgCl2-supported catalyst for propylene polymerization under atmospheric pressure. The PP particles had good dispersibility, and adhesion phenomenon didn’t occur among the spheres. The sizes of majority of PP particles prepared by bulk polymerization were in the range of 1 um to 100 um, which basically meet the size requirements for 3D printing materials. The relevant achievement was published in journal 《Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research》(http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.iecr.5b02986).
Fig 1 Scanning electron microscope image of spherical Mg(OEt)2 carriers
Fig 2 Scanning electron microscopy images of the PP with excellent shape.
