Ring Walking/Oxidative Addition Reactions for the Controlled Synthesis of Conjugated Polymers
Power conversion efficiencies of plastic solar cells depend strongly on the molecular weight characteristics of the semiconducting polymers used for their fabrication. The synthesis of these materials typically relies on transition metal mediated catalytic reactions. In many instances, the ideal structures cannot be attained because of deficiencies in these reactions, particularly when it comes to being able to achieve high number average molecular weights and narrow molecular weight distributions. Another important conjugated polymer structure of interest is one in which a single functional group is attached at the end group of the chain. Such systems would be ideal for modifying surface properties at interfaces and for labeling biomolecular probes used in fluorescent biosensors. To respond to the challenges above, our efforts have centered on the design of homogenous transition metal complexes that are easy to prepare and effective in carrying out living, or quasi-living, condensative chain polymerization reactions. The key mechanistic challenge for the success of this reaction is to force the insertion of one monomer unit at a time via a process that involves migration of the transition metal-containing fragment to one terminus of the polymer chain. Chain growth characteristics are therefore favored when the metal does not dissociate from the newly formed reductive elimination product. We have proposed that dissociation is disfavored by the formation of a -complex, in which the metal can sample various locations of the electronically delocalized framework, a process that we term ring-walking , and find the functionality where oxidative addition takes place. Success has been achieved in the nickel-mediated cross coupling reaction of Grignard reagents with aromatic halides by using bromo[1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane]phenylnickel. This reagent can yield poly(thiophene)s (one of the most widely used type of polymer in plastic solar cells) with excellent stereoregularity and molecular weight distributions with polydispersities that are consistent with a living polymerization sequence. Another important objective of this program concerned the use of these new catalysts and improved mechanistic insight for the synthesis of specific polymeric materials with prespecified properties.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-98ER14910
- OSTI ID:
- 1037865
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/ER/14910
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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