DSC analysis of ethylene/1-butene copolymers obtained with different Ziegler-Natta catalysts

The crystallization and melting behaviour of two sets of ethylene/1-butene copolymers have been analysed by DSC. The samples, with comonomer content in the range from 0 to 21.5 mol%, were obtained by industrial processes using both Mg/Ti-based and Ti/V-based catalyst systems. The composition dependences of melting and crystallization temperatures were found to be strictly affected by the catalyst type. Moreover, logarithmic plots of the melting and crystallization enthalpy as a function of the ethylene content (mol%) in the copolymers fitted linear relationships whose slopes have been related to the critical sequence length of crystallizable ethylene units, depending on the catalytic system. These results are compared with those reported in the literature for ethylene/1-butene copolymers synthesized by other catalysts and are accounted for by a different distribution of the comonomer units in the macromolecules of the two sets of samples.