Hydrophilic Catalysts with High Activity and Stability in the Aqueous Polymerization of Ethylene to High-Molecular-Weight-Polyethylene.

Water-soluble synthetic transition metal catalysts have been studied extensively for many reactions, but for olefin polymerization such catalysts have been lacking. We report herein a straightforward synthesis of phosphinephenolato Ni II catalysts endowed permanently with a hydrophilic sulfonate moiety bound to the chelating ligand. These catalysts' hydrophilic active sites promote aqueous ethylene polymerization with high activity (TOF up to 6.3×10 4  mol Ethylene  mol Ni -1  h -1 ) to high molecular weight polyethylene (HDPE), with half-lives on the order of hours also at elevated temperatures. The obtained polyethylene dispersions feature narrow particle size distributions without any aggregates.