We first investigated the use of different Ni precursors in the presence of dtbbpy as an ancillary ligand under conditions similar to those reported by Hojo et al. We changed the solvent from DMF to DCM as the DiICz PCs are more soluble in the later. We observe a generally higher product yield in DCM when using Ni(COD)2 than with NiBr2•glyme, regardless of choice of PC. The use of DiICzMes4 yielded 65% in combination with Ni(COD)2 while using NiBr2•glyme only results in a 41% yield ( was obtained in a 74% yield when using a 1:1 mixture of DMSO:toluene (Table , Entry 4), while the control experiment with fac-Ir(ppy)3 yielded a comparable yield of 77% (Table , Entry 6). The 1:1 DMSO:toluene solvent system had previously been shown to be optimal with SACR-IPTZ as the PC, yielding 99% of 1 (Table , Entry 8). The reaction does not readily proceed in toluene, yielding only 10% product, while in DMSO an increase in the yield (64% of 1) compared to in DCM is observed, ostensibly due to a partial suppression of the formation of 2 (Table , Entry 1-3). Using 1:1 DMSO:toluene in combination with the preformed Ni complex [Ni(dtbbpy)(OH2)4]Cl2 and DiICzMes4 as the PC resulted in 81% yield of 1 and only 13% of 2 (Table , Entry 7). Reducing the reaction time from 24 to 3 h resulted in a lower yield of 1 (54%) but not of 2 (13%) (Table , Entry 5), while with fac-Ir(ppy)3 as the PC the product was obtained in 68% yield after 3 h (Table , Entry 7). While the reaction with fac-Ir(ppy)3 is slightly faster than with DiICzMes4, effectively similar yields of 74 and 77% were obtained after 24 h using DiICzMes4 and fac-Ir(ppy)3, respectively.