Elongation and branching of α-olefins by ethylene employing an easily accessible Zr catalyst

Selective co-oligomerizations between α-olefins and ethylene are of high interest since they allow to extend the α-olefin scope employing inexpensive and abundantly available ethylene. Here we report on an easily accessible zirconium catalyst that permits the co-oligomerization of 1-hexene and ethylene with an activity of 2200 kg/mol h bar and a co-oligomer selectivity of 65 mol%. In more detail, we report synthesis and structure of six novel Zr precatalysts, their ethylene homo-oligomerization behavior and the co-oligomerization of the most promising of the six precatalysts. Criteria were activity and selectivity (α-value). Some of the Zr catalyst systems introduced here show an extremely high activity in ethylene homo-oligomerization up to 96,600 kg/mol h bar.