New approaches to all carbon ladder polymers: Cyclization reactions of acetylenes

Conference · Fri Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1993

OSTI ID:141745

Zhou, Q; Swager, T M ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (United States)

All-carbon conjugated ladder polymers promise to exhibit attractive electrical and optical properties. While a few very elegant synthesis of all-carbon ladder polymers (and oligomers) have been reported, it can be said that present synthetic procedures are insufficient to realize the true potential of this important class of material. The limited state of synthetic procedures stems from the inherent insolubility of ladder polymers which precludes standard synthetic methods. This paper reports herein the authors` investigations towards new synthetic routes to all-carbon ladder polymers with novel architectures by cyclization reactions of poly(1,2-denthynyl-phenylenes) and solid state polymerization of macrocyclic diacetylenes. High molecular weight (53,000-170,000) poly(1,2-diethynyl-phenylenes) have been synthesized by palladium catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. It is proposed that these materials may be converted to all-carbon ladder polymers by a zipper version of the Bergman cyclization reaction. A strained macrocylic diacetylene is reported which appears to undergo cyclo-polymerization in the solid state. This reaction also is being investigated as a route to all-carbon ladder polymers.

• OSTI ID: 141745
• Report Number(s): CONF-930304--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
40 CHEMISTRY
ALKYNES
CARBON
CYCLIZATION
ORGANIC POLYMERS
POLYMERIZATION