Summary
Polymerization of 4-n-alkylstyrenes (alkyl side group; methyl, ethyl, propyl and buthyl) was carried out with the η-C5(CH3)5TiCl3-methylaluminoxane (MAO) and TiCl3-triethylaluminum (TEA) catalyst systems. When the η-C5(CH3)5TiCl3-MAO catalyst was used, the stereoregularity of resulting polymers markedly depended on the length of substituted alkyl groups, i.e., the catalyst gave highly syndriotactic poly(4-methylstryrene), but produced atactic polymers for the monomers with ethyl, propyl and buthyl substituents. On the other hand, all the poly(4-n-alkylstyrene)s obtained with the TiCl3-TEA catalyst were highly isotactic. As a result, a large difference was observed in the thermal properties of polymers obtained between the two catalyst systems.