This paper reviews investigations into the composition of macro- and microcrystalline paraffin waxes, focused on the structure of these paraffin waxes. This paper describes a analytical method that gives massive information about the structure of the paraffin waxes, using a special C-13-NMR spectroscopy method. This method based on a characterization of ethene/alpha-olefine copolymers that exhibit a similar structure to that of paraffin waxes.

Solution and gas phase processes of the polymerization of ethene are compared using new types of pentalenyl bridged ansa-metallocenes such as [Me(3)Pen(Flu)]ZrCl2. As of the bridge, the catalyst system is remarkable thermostable up to 105 degrees C and a deactivation of the metallocene on the silica support can be suppressed. Compared to the non-supported catalyst in a solution process, the application of the heterogenized system in a gas phase process leads to a decrease in activities while molar masses of the polyethenes are similar. Due to a higher degree of short chain branches of 20-30 per 1 000 carbon atoms instead of 10-17, the melting temperatures are 10 degrees C lower than those for polymers obtained in the solution process.

Pentalene bridged zirconocene/methylaluminoxane catalysts are described as useful for the polymerization of ethene, propene, and co-polymerizations with norbornene. They show a high thermostability up to polymerization temperatures of 105°C. Polyethylenes with molecular masses of 4milliong/mol are obtained at 30°C and 500,000g/mol at more than 90°C. The molecular mass distribution varies between 2 and 15 because of the steric isomers of the pentalene ligand. Some of the complexes are active for the polymerization of propene. Similar to ansa cyclopentadienyl–fluorenyl complexes, the tacticity of the produced polypropylenes can be changed from syndiotactic to isotactic by substitution of the cyclopentadienyl ring.

Branch contents in sparsely short-chain branched polyethylenes ( 100 000 g/mol was shown to be feasible in both solid-state and melt measurements in less than a one-day measurement, obtained on a 500 MHz spectrometer and 4 mm rotor. Using this enhanced signal intensity, NMR relaxation times were investigated in the melt with respect to their inherent sensitivity to the branching architecture. These measurements included T-1rho, T-1, and T-1(NOE). It was found that T-1(NOE) seems to have the best sensitivity to determine the approximate length of the side chain branches for n > 6.

The synthesis of long-chain branched polyethylene by copolymerization of ethylene with higher alpha-olefins has its limitations due to commercial availabilities of pure alpha-olefins above carbon lengths of C30. Soga(1) and Bazan(2) have shown the possibility of inserting side chains up to a length of 60 carbons into a growing polyethylene backbone. The details of combining [Me2C(CP)(2)]ZrCl2 (1) and [Me2Si((NBu)-Bu-t)(Me4Cp)]TiCl2 (2) to obtain long-chain branched polyethylene with branch lengths up to 350 carbons as well as the copolymerization profile and purification of the product throughout the Kumagawa extraction are discussed here. Compound 1 was used in a first oligomerization step to yield a macro-comonomer. Three different methods involving conventional copolymerization, tandem polymerization, and simultaneous entry of the catalysts were examined using 2 and MAO as cocatalyst to copolymerize different macro-comonomers with ethylene.