GB951308A - Process for the manufacture of wax-like oxidation products from solid low pressure polyolefines - Google Patents

Abstract

A wax-like product is obtained by treating a powdery low pressure olefin polymer (e.g. polyethylene, polypropylene or polybutylene) at a temperature below its softening point with an oxidizing gas (e.g. oxygen or air-preferably ozonized) under conditions which permit intimate mixing. Optionally the reaction is accelerated with an organic peroxide (of those listed, benzoyl peroxide is exemplified) or with acetic or formic acid. The treatment may be in a fluidized bed, or in suspension (in the absence of methanol) in water or an organic medium such as an inert halogenated hydrocarbon or a liquid hydrocarbon which itself becomes oxidized under the conditions of the reaction. The oxidizable hydrocarbons are preferably pre-oxidized and specified are gasoline, microcrystalline wax, Fischer-Tropsch paraffins, high pressure polyolefin waxes and thermally decomposed low pressure polyolefins. The wax-like oxidation products are long-chain dicarboxylic acids also containing alcoholic and ketone groups; they may have an oxygen content of up to 40%, an acid number up to 400, a saponification number up to 500 and a molecular weight up to 5000. The wax-like oxidation products may be esterified with an alcohol or a phenol, optionally in the presence of a mono-, di-, or poly-carboxylic acid (e.g. montan wax acid), to give wax-like materials which find application alone or in conjunction with di- or poly-carboxylic acids, in shoe and floor polishes, polish emulsions, lubricants, and casting and impregnating waxes.