Process for forming high performance titanium trichloride olefin polymerization catalyst components

Claim 1

In a process for preparing a brown solid comprising beta titanium trichloride and some, up to 10 mole percent, of at least one hydrocarbyl ether, said brown solid having a surface area above about eighty square meters per gram and a pore volume above about one-tenth cubic centimeter per gram and made by a process comprising (a) reducing titanium tetrachloride with a lower alkyl dihydrocarbylaluminum halide at a temperature below about 0° C., (b) raising the temperature of the product of (a) to less than about 100° C., (c) incorporating the solid product of (b) with at least one hydrocarbyl ether, and (d) thereafter treating the solid product of (c) with a solution in an inert liquid of an electron pair acceptor compound selected from the group consisting of titanium tetrachloride, titanium alkoxyhalide, aluminum bromide, germanium tetrachloride, silicon tetrachloride, and other periodic Group IVB, IVA, and VA halides under conditions of temperature, time, concentration of said acceptor compound dissolved in said inert liquid, and mole ratio of acceptor compound to titanium contained in the solid from (c) which convert said solid from (c) into a brown solid having a surface area of about eighty square meters per gram and a pore volume of about one-tenth cubic centimeters per gram, the improvement wherein a lower alkyl alkylaluminum dihalide is employed in (a) in an amount such that the molar ratio of dihydrocarbylaluminum halide to alkylaluminum dihalide ranges from about 0.5:1 to about 10:1.