LAUSR

Ziegler-Natta catalysts are used to produce a significant fraction of Dow’s 16 billion pound annual polyethylene production. The current generation of Ziegler-Natta catalysts is based on titanium active species supported on high surface area magnesium chloride. In spite of the very successful deployment of Ziegler-Natta catalysts in industrial processes, a detailed understanding of the catalyst structure is still lacking. The local morphology and structure of salts such as MgCl2 is poorly explored and rarely reported because imaging the pristine state of these materials at atomic resolution is challenging for two reasons: First, their structural integrity is compromised by any exposure to oxygen or moisture (Figure 1). In addition, such materials are susceptible to damage by the probing electron radiation (Figure 1). Elucidating the atomic-scale structure of MgCl2 materials would lead to beneficial understanding of structure-property relationships of Ziegler-Natta catalysts.