Patent ID: 6459005
Filing Date: 2002-10-01
Classification: C08F,C10M,C10N

Abstract:
A method of producing an ethylene/&agr;-olefin copolymer comprising copolymerizing ethylene and an &agr;-olefin having 3 to 10 carbon atoms in the presence of an olefin-polymerizing catalyst comprising:(A) a transition metal compound, represented by the following formula II wherein M is a transition metal atom selected from Group 3 to 11 of the Periodic Table; m is an integer of 1-6; R1 to R6 may be the same or different from each other, and is a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, a hydrocarbon group, a heterocyclic compound residue group, an oxygen-containing group, a nitrogen-containing group, a boron-containing group, a sulfur-containing group, a phosphorus-containing group, a silicon-containing group, a germanium-containing group or a tin-containing group, with the proviso that two or more of these may be bonded to each other to form a ring, and when m is 2 or more, any two of groups represented by R1 to R6 may be bonded; n is a number satisfying a valence of M; X is a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, a hydrocarbon group, an oxygen-containing group, a sulfur-containing group, a nitrogen-containing group, a boron-containing group, an aluminum-containing group, a phosphorus-containing group, a halogen-containing group, a heterocyclic compound residual group, a silicon-containing group, a germanium-containing group or a tin-containing group, with the proviso that when n is 2 or more, plural groups represented by X may be the same as or different from each other, and plural groups represented by X may be bonded to each other to form a ring; (B) at least one compound selected from the groups consisting of (B-1) an organometallic compound; (B-2) an organoaluminoxy compound; (B-3) a compound reacting with the transition metal compound (A) to form an ion pair, said copolymerization being conducted under copolymerization conditions and said ethylene and &agr;-olefin being present in amounts effective to yield an ethylene/&agr;-olefin copolymer comprised of 30 to 80% by mol of ethylene units and 20 to 70% by mol of &agr;-olefin, said copolymer having a number-average molecular weight (Mn) of 500 to 12,000, determined by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and molecular weight distribution (Mw/Mn) of 3 or less; having a kinetic viscosity at 100Â° C. of 10 to 5,000 mm2/s; with at least 95% of the polymer chains having at least one unsaturated bond at the molecular terminals thereof; and having a B value, given by the following formula (I) of 1.0 to 2.0: B=POE/(2POÂ·PE)â€ƒâ€ƒ(I) wherein PE is molar fraction of the ethylene unit in the copolymer, PO is molar fraction of the &agr;-olefin unit in the copolymer, and POE is the proportion of the number of &agr;-olefin/ethylene sequences to the number of all the dyad sequences.