Surprisingly, Ni1-Ni3 catalysts exhibited moderate to high activity toward the homopolymerization (up to 3.21 × 106 g PNB (mol of Ni)-1 h-1) and copolymerization of norbornene with 1-octene (up to 1.39 × 105 g polymer (mol of Ni)-1 h-1) with B(C6F5)3 as the cocatalyst even at 100 °C, showing that tridentate nickel catalysts have high thermal stability.  The obtained poly(NB-co-1-octene)s were confirmed to be vinyl-addition copolymers, which exhibited high 1-octene insertion ratio (9%-17%), good thermal stability (Td > 400 °C), high molecular weight (up to 105), and narrow molecular weight distribution (PDI ≤ 1.91).
THERM