Investigating the electron-donating effect of aryl substituents in the catalytic behavior of α-diimine nickel (II) catalyst on ethylene polymerization

In this work, we are interested in conducting an investigation on the polymerization of ethylene catalyzed by the α-diimine Ni(II) complexes with camphyl backbone and electron-donating substituents in aryl positions. The ligand electronic effect on the catalytic activity of Ni(II) complexes in ethylene polymerization was systematically investigated. The synthesized complexes were active in ethylene polymerization with activities on the level of 104 g of PE (mol of Ni.h)-1.