Fractionation and Chain Microstructure of Polypropylene Homopolymer for Spinning

doi:10.19894/j.issn.1000-0518.250227

Chinese Journal of Applied Chemistry ›› 2026, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (1): 77-86.DOI: 10.19894/j.issn.1000-0518.250227

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Fractionation and Chain Microstructure of Polypropylene Homopolymer for Spinning

Yu-Xin GAO¹, Rui LI², Ming-Yue YAN², Yan-Xiong PAN², Li-Juan WANG¹, Qi YANG¹, Xiang-Ling JI², Wei LIU²()

^1.Daqing Petrochemical Research Center，Petrochemical Research Institute of PetroChina，Daqing 163714，China
^2.State Key Laboratory of Polymer Science and Technology，Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry，Chinese Academy of Sciences，Changchun 130022，China

Received:2025-06-03 Accepted:2025-08-25 Published:2026-01-01 Online:2026-01-26
Contact: Wei LIU
About author:wliu@ciac.ac.cn

Abstract

Abstract:

Polypropylene （PP） fibers have extensive applications in multiple fields such as clothing， baby diapers， non-woven fabrics， and geotextiles. The PP resins used for spinning need to have specific chain microstructure distribution to meet the special requirements of spinning process. In this paper， the effective fractionation of PP homopolymer （HPP） is achieved through preparative temperature rising elution fractionation （P-TREF） technique. A variety of characterization methods such as ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy （¹³C NMR）， high-temperature gel permeation chromatography （HT-GPC）， and differential scanning calorimetry （DSC） were used to determine the pentad distribution， isotacticity， relative molecular mass and its distribution， melting temperature of the fractions at each elution temperature， aiming to reveal the chain microstructure distribution of PP homopolymers used for spinning. HPP is mainly composed of high-temperature fractions （110~125 ℃） with a total mass percentage as high as 91.21%. In contrast， the contents of low-temperature fractions （35~105 ℃） and extremely high-temperature fractions （130~140 ℃） are relatively low， with a mass percentage of 8.05% and 0.73% respectively. The mass-average relative molecular mass of the 110~125 ℃ fraction is 8.00×10⁴~28.43×10⁴， the isotacticity is 88.0%~93.4%， and the melting point is 159.0~165.3 ℃. These results indicate that HPP is mainly composed of fractions with strong crystallizability. The longer crystalline sequences in these fractions contribute to the orientation of the chains during fiber spinning.

Key words: Polypropylene, Fiber, Fractionation, Chain microstructure

CLC Number:

O631

Yu-Xin GAO, Rui LI, Ming-Yue YAN, Yan-Xiong PAN, Li-Juan WANG, Qi YANG, Xiang-Ling JI, Wei LIU. Fractionation and Chain Microstructure of Polypropylene Homopolymer for Spinning[J]. Chinese Journal of Applied Chemistry, 2026, 43(1): 77-86.

Figures/Tables 13

Fig.1 Schematic diagram of P-TREF equipment

Table 1 Relative molecular mass， melting temperature， crystallization temperature， and crystallinity of HPP resin

Sample	10^-4M_w	10^-4M_n	M_w/M_n	T_m/℃	T_c/℃	X_c/%
HPP	19.78	7.43	2.66	161.1/167.4	109.7	43.2

Fig.2 Molecular mass distribution profile of HPP resin

Fig.3 DSC heating （A）， cooling （B） and SSA thermal fractionation （C） curves of HPP resinat a rate of 10 ℃/min

Fig.4 Variations in mass percent （Wi） of the fractions of HPP resin with the elution temperature of P-TREF

Fig.5 （A） 13C NMR spectra of 35 ℃ fraction （a）， 80 ℃ fraction （b）， 100 ℃ fraction （c）， 105 ℃ fraction （d）， 110 ℃ fraction （e）， 115 ℃ fraction （f）， 120 ℃ fraction （g）， 125 ℃ fraction （h）， and HPP resin （i）；（B） The relationship between the isotacticity of fractions with P-TREF elution temperature

Table 2 The pentad tacticities of HPP resin

Sample	x（mmmm）/%	x（mmmr）/%	x（rmmr）/%	x（mmrr）/%	x（mmrm+rmrr）/%	x（rmrm）/%	x（rrrr）/%	x（rrrm）/%	x（mrrm）/%
HPP	81.2	8.3	2.2	2.4	2.2	0.5	1.0	0.9	1.5

Table 3 The mass percent （Wi） of the fractions of HPP resin obtained from P-TREF

Elution temperature/℃	35	80	100	105	110	115	120	125	130	135	140
W_i/%	2.13	1.76	2.72	1.44	5.09	13.08	47.37	25.67	0.34	0.10	0.29

Table 4 The pentad tacticities of fractions of HPP resin

Elution temperature/℃	x（mmmm）/%	x（mmmr）/%	x（rmmr）/%	x（mmrr）/%	x（mmrm+rmrr）/%	x（rmrm）/%	x（rrrr）/%	x（rrrm）/%	x（mrrm）/%
35	59.4	9.4	1.9	7.4	6.4	1.4	6.9	3.7	3.5
80	59.6	11.7	2.0	10.4	3.5	1.1	3.6	2.7	5.3
100	74.2	9.9	0.8	7.2	1.4	1.0	1.3	1.3	2.9
105	80.3	7.3	2.4	3.8	1.3	1.3	0.8	1.1	1.8
110	88.0	4.0	2.7	2.2	0.6	0.5	0.3	0.6	1.1
115	89.1	3.9	2.2	2.5	0.3	0.4	0.3	0.4	0.9
120	92.6	2.3	1.0	1.5	0.8	0.3	0.5	0.4	0.6
125	93.4	1.8	0.8	1.6	0.6	0.5	0.4	0.5	0.5

Table 5 Relative molecular mass of the fractions of HPP resin obtained under different elution temperatures

Elution temperature/℃	10^-4M_w	10^-4M_n	M_w/M_n
35	19.35	3.80	5.09
80	5.45	0.95	4.71
100	5.30	1.51	3.51
105	6.37	2.07	3.07
110	8.00	3.70	2.17
115	9.28	5.75	1.61
120	18.42	10.38	1.77
125	28.43	17.11	1.66
130	31.46	17.90	1.76
135	—	—	—
140	18.98	6.38	2.98

Fig.6 Molecular mass distribution profiles of 35 （a）， 80 （b）， 100 （c）， 105 （d）， 110 （e）， 115 （f）， 120 （g）， 125 （h）， 130 （i）， and 140 ℃ （j） fractions of HPP resin

Fig.7 Melting （A） and crystallization （B） curves of 35 （a）， 80 （b）， 100 （c）， 105 （d）， 110 （e）， 115 （f）， 120 （g） and 125 ℃ （h） fractions of HPP resin， and （C） the variation of Tm （a） and Tc （b） with P-TREF elution temperatures

Fig.8 Contour plot of fraction distribution in HPP resin obtained from P-TREF and HT-GPC cross fractionation

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Fractionation and Chain Microstructure of Polypropylene Homopolymer for Spinning

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