Synthesis, structures of half-sandwich titanium complexes with bulky aryloxide ligand and their catalytic performance for olefin polymerization

Three bulky cyclopentadienyltitanium aryloxide complexes, [Ti(eta(5)-C5Me4Ar)(O-2,6-(Bu2C6H3)-Bu-t) Cl-2], (Ar = C6H5 (4), 4-(PrC6H4)-Pr-i (5), 4-Me3SiC6H4 (6)) have been synthesized from reaction of the corresponding cyclopentadienyltitanium trichloride derivatives with 1 equiv of LiO-2,6-(Bu2C6H3)-Bu-t. These half-sandwich complexes 4-6 have been characterized by H-1 and C-13 NMR spectroscopy. The molecular structure of complexes 4 and 6 has been determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction studies. When activated with (Bu3Al)-Bu-i and Ph3C+B(C6F5)(4) , complexes 4-6 exhibits reasonable catalytic activity for ethylene polymerization, producing moderate molecular weight polyethylenes. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.