Regio- and stereoselective polymerization of diynes with inorganic comonomer: a facile strategy to conjugated poly(p-arylene dihalodiene)s with processability and postfunctionalizability

Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society. Development of new methodologies for synthesizing polymers with novel structures and unique properties is a fundamentally important area in polymer science. Herein, a novel synthetic strategy to conjugated poly(p-arylene dihalodiene)s (PADs) with high regio- and stereoselectivity was developed. In the presence of PdBr 2 and CuBr 2 , the polymerizations of terminal alkynes proceeded smoothly in air without heating to generate PADs in high yields (up to 95.3%) with high molecular weights (M w up to 915 900). Low-cost inorganic CuBr 2 played dual roles as cocatalyst and comonomer. The PADs possessed good solubility and film-formi ng ability. Their thin films exhibited high refractive indices (1.7149-1.7245) and would be fabricated into well-resolved fluorescent photopatterns by photolithography. Thanks to the vinyl bromine functionality, the PADs could undergo efficient postmodification to afford polymers with more sophisticated structures and applications. ©