Idemitsu Petrochemical Co., Ltd.

Takao Tamura

Yasushi Shiraki

Masahiko Kuramoto

Masami Watanabe

Haruhito Sato

Shinji Tanaka

Kunio Takeuchi

Hironori Tashiro

A transition metal compound of Groups to 10 of the Periodic Table, represented by the following formula (1):

Transition metal compound, olefin polymerization catalyst, and method of polymerizing olefin

Catalyst for the production of &agr;-olefin and &agr;-olefin production method

A catalyst which is able to express a high oligomerizing activity of ethylene and a method for the production of &agr;-olefin where ethylene is oligomerized using said catalyst are provided. The present invention relates to a catalyst for the production of &agr;-olefin obtained by contacting (a) clay, clay mineral or ion-exchange layer compound with (b-1) a transition metal complex of Groups 4 to 6 of the Periodic Table and also relates to a method for the production of &agr;-olefin by oligomerization of ethylene using said catalyst. The present invention further relates to a catalyst for the production of &agr;-olefin obtained by contacting (a) clay, clay mineral or ion-exchange layer compound with (b-2) a transition metal complex of Groups 8 to 10 of the Periodic Table and also relates to a method of the production of &agr;-olefin by oligomerization of ethylene using said catalyst.

Catalysts for &agr;-olefin production and processes for producing &agr;-olefin

A process of producing an .alpha.-olefin which comprises carrying out separately the growth of ethylene with triethyl aluminum and the growth of ethylene with tributyl aluminum, displacing the resulting higher trialkyl aluminum with ethylene, thereby forming triethyl aluminum and an .alpha.-olefin, and displacing at least part of the resulting triethyl aluminum with butene contained in the resulting .alpha.-olefin, thereby forming tributyl aluminum. The present invention permits the efficient production of .alpha.-olefins containing linear .alpha.-olefins in extremely high purity. The .alpha.-olefins will find use as comonomers for polyolefins (whose demand is increasing recently) and also as raw materials of synthetic lubricants.

Process of producing .alpha.-olefin

Disclosed herein is a process for producing a linear .alpha.-olefin by the oligomerization of ethylene, characterized in that the oligomerization is carried out in the presence of a catalyst composed of (A) titanium halide or zirconium halide, (B) an organoaluminum compound, and (C) an alcohol (methanol and/or ethanol). The linear .alpha.-olefin has an extremely high purity because it is not contaminated with the catalyst components.

Production of linear .alpha.-olefin

In a method for the production of linear .alpha.-olefins by the oligomerization of ethylene in the presence of a catalyst system composed of (A) zirconium tetrachloride, (B-a) ethyl aluminum sesquichloride and (B-b) triethyl aluminum, an improvement is proposed which comprises using the catalyst system prepared in a specific procedure in which one of the essential conditions is the order of successive introduction of the three components along with the concentration of zirconium tetrachloride, temperature and length of time. It is essential that introduction of the component (B-b) is not preceded by the contacting of the components (A) and (B-a). Accoridng to the invention, the reaction product contains the species of the linear .alpha.-olefin compounds having higher usefulness than other species in a greatly increased yield.

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Tokuyama, Japan

Takao Tamura