Enhancing thermo-stability to ethylene polymerization: synthesis, characterization and the catalytic behavior of 1-(2,4-dibenzhydryl-6-chlorophenylimino)-2-aryliminoacenaphthylnickel halidesElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. CCDC 1422645 and 1422646 contain the supplementary crystallographic data for Ni2 and Ni5. For ESI and crystallographic data in CIF or other electronic format see DOI: 10.1039/c5ra18257c

A series of 1-(2,4-dibenzhydryl-6-chlorophenylimino)-2-aryliminoacenaphthylene derivatives ( L1-L5 ) was synthesized and reacted with nickel halides to form the corresponding nickel complexes LNiX 2 (X = Br, Ni1-Ni5 ; X = Cl, Ni6-Ni10 ). The molecular structures of representative complexes Ni2 and Ni5 were determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction, indicating the distorted square planar geometry around the nickel atom of complex Ni2 and the distorted tetrahedral geometry around the nickel atom of complex Ni5 , respectively. Upon activation with low amounts of ethylaluminium sesquichloride (Et 3 Al 2 Cl 3 , EASC), all nickel complexes exhibited high activities up to 1.09 × 10 7 g of PE per mol of Ni per h toward ethylene polymerization, producing branched polyethylenes. Most importantly, these systems showed good thermo-stability, even at 80 °C maintaining the activity with 3.76 × 10 6 g of PE per mol of Ni per h. The title complexes exhibited high activities up to 1.09 × 10 7 g of PE/(mol of Ni per h) in ethylene polymerization with better thermo-stability activated with ethylaluminium sesquichloride.