Electrochemical synthesis of zirconium pre-catalysts for homogeneous ethylene oligomerization

© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. The catalytic activity of electrochemically synthesized zirconium carboxylates was studied in the process of ethylene oligomerization. Zirconium carboxylates were electrochemically synthesized directly from metallic zirconium and corresponding carboxylic acids (acetic, octanoic and lauric). A comprehensive study (element analysis, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and infrared (IR) spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD)) of the synthesized zirconium carboxylates showed that these species contain bidentate carboxylate moieties. It was shown that obtained zirconium carboxylates, in combination with Et3Al2Cl3 (Al/Zr = 20), have a moderate activity of (7.6–9.9) × 103 molC2H4∙molZr−1∙h−1 in terms of ethylene oligomerization (at T = 80 °C, p = 20 bar), leading to even-numbered C4–C10 linear alpha-olefins