Novel Polymeric Materials Via ROMP Using Well-Defined Initiators

Abstract

The synthesis of functional polymers through the polymerisation of functionlised monomers is ideal, as it enables the direct incorporation of functionality into the polymer backbone and thus avoids the potential difficulty of chemical transformation on a polymeric substrate. The initial efforts in the search for a catalyst system effective for ring opening metathesis polymerisation, ROMP, of functionalised substrate were met with limited success. The preparation of such heteroatom-containing materials using classical metathesis catalysts proved difficult in the past, due to the sensitivity of these electrophilic metal complexes towards the heteroatom functionality. As a result, poisoning of the catalyst and polymerisation become competitive processes. However, well-defined and living ROMP initiators have been prepared that are deactivated to an extend that they do not react with the functionality, but still react with strained carboncarbon double bond of the monomer on the time scale of a polymerisation.