Structural and Thermal Properties of Ethylene-Norbornene Copolymers Obtained Using Vanadium Homogeneous and SIL Catalysts

The series of ethylene-norbornene (E-NB) copolymers was obtained using different vanadium homogeneous and supported ionic liquid (SIL) catalyst systems. The (13)C and (1)H NMR (carbon and proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy) together with differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were applied to determine the composition of copolymers such as comonomer incorporation (C(NB)), monomer dispersity (MD), monomer reactivity ratio (r(e)), sequence length of ethylene (l(e)) and tetrad microblock distributions. The relation between the type of catalyst, reaction conditions and on the other hand, the copolymer microstructure, chain termination reaction analyzed by the type of unsaturation are discussed. In addition, the thermal properties of E-NB copolymers such as the melting and crystallization behavior, like also the heterogeneity of composition described by successive the self-nucleation and annealing (SSA) and the dispersity index (DI) were determined.