ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Neutron PDF Analysis of Solid Methylaluminoxane as an Activating Catalyst Support

Abstract: Methylaluminoxane (MAO) is the most commonly used activator and co-catalyst for transition metal complexes in olefin polymerisation reactions. Despite its widespread use, there remains considerable debate about the precise composition, structure and catalytic function. We have recently developed an insoluble form of solid MAO which acts as an activator and support in slurry-phase ethylene polymerisation. We aim to probe the structure of amorphous sMAO using total neutron scattering measurements at GEM/POLARIS. By comparison of the experimental neutron pair distribution function (PDF) for fully deuterated sMAO with X-ray PDF data of sMAO, and simulated data for DFT calculated structures of MAO, we will model the main phases of sMAO with the aim of linking structure to polymerisation activity.

Principal Investigator: Professor Dermot O'Hare
Experimenter: Dr Alexander Kilpatrick
Experimenter: Dr Zoe Turner
Experimenter: Mr Harry Geddes
Local Contact: Dr Alex Hannon
Experimenter: Dr Jean-Charles Buffet
Experimenter: Dr Patrick Cullen

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1810474

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1810474

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Professor Dermot O'Hare et al; (2018): Neutron PDF Analysis of Solid Methylaluminoxane as an Activating Catalyst Support, STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1810474

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.