Synthesis of precision polymers on a large scale

虽然聚乙烯催化是一个成熟的领域，但全球对更坚固、更轻材料的需求以及聚乙烯需求的增长推动了产品设计的持续创新。这种持续不断的创新使得在产品包装中用较重的材料(如玻璃和纸板)取代较重的材料成为可能，从而在燃料效率和减少产品运输中的温室气体方面提供了显著的环境优势。此外，目前并不是所有的塑料食品包装都是可回收的，因为需要将聚烯烃材料与其他材料混合，以产生良好的阻隔性并保持食品新鲜。加强对聚乙烯结构的控制，并将共聚单体引入聚合物主干，有望极大地改善聚合物的流变性和力学性能。这样的改进可以用来生产多功能聚烯烃，也可以100%回收。这将对减少进入垃圾填埋场的材料数量产生巨大影响，并将通过允许回收现有材料来减少所需的原始塑料树脂的数量。在这个项目中，我们的目标是使用分步齐聚物合成来制备具有高度可控聚合物结构的材料，以便我们能够研究它们的性能。如果成功，可以设想Nova化学公司和舍布鲁克大学的科学家之间将进行更长时间的合作，以经济上可行的方式制备此类产品。

While polyethylene catalysis is a mature field, global needs for stronger, lighter materials and growth in polyethylene demand drives ongoing innovation in product design. Such ongoing innovation has enabled, and continues to enable, the replacement of heavier materials with (such as glass and cardboard) in product packaging, thereby offering a significant environmental advantage in terms of fuel efficiency and reduced greenhouse gases in product transport. Furthermore, not all plastic food packaging is currently recyclable due to the need to mix polyolefin materials with other materials to create good barrier properties and keep food fresh. Enhanced control over polyethylene structure and co-monomer incorporation into the polymer backbone, are expected to lead to vastly improved rheological and mechanical polymer properties. Such improvements could be used to produce multifunctional polyolefins that are also 100% recyclable. This would have a tremendous effect on reducing the amount of material going into landfills and would reduce the amount of virgin plastic resin needed by allowing recycling of existing material. In this project, we aim to use step-wise oligomer synthesis to make materials with highly controlled polymer structures so that we can investigate their performance. If successful, it could be envisaged that a longer collaboration be engaged in between NOVA Chemicals and the scientists at Université de Sherbrooke to prepare such products by economically viable routes.