Ethylene homo and copolymerization by phosphorus-benzoquinone based homogeneous and heterogeneous nickel catalysts

The low cost and high abundancy of nickel makes it highly attractive for both industrial and academic researchers in the field of polyolefin. However, the development of high performance nickel catalysts for ethylene homo and copolymerization is highly challenging. In this contribution, two novel cationic nickel catalysts with quinone backbone and sterically hindered aryl substituents on phosphine have been synthesized and supported on solid supports to prepare heterogeneous catalysts. The homogeneous catalysts showed high activity and high thermal stability in ethylene polymerization. After heterogenization of these catalysts, all the polymerization parameters (polymerization activity, thermal stability, and polymer molecular weight) were significantly improved. The heterogeneous catalyst can achieve activity of up to 3.26 x 10(6) g mol(-1) h(-1), along with polyethylene molecular weight of up to 81.8 x 10(4) g mol(-1). More importantly, these homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts can realize copolymerization of ethylene with a series of polar comonomers such as methyl 10-undecenoate, 10-undecenol, and 6-chloro-1-hexene.