Melanins are naturally occurring pigmentary polymeric networks found in skin, hair, eye and brain of mammals. Eumelanin, a brown-black biopolymer, is the most common form of melanin, which is composed of 5,6-dihydroxyindole and 5,6-dihydroxyindole-2-carboxylic acids. It is known as photoprotective agent due to its high degree of conjugation, and extremely higher absorption of ultraviolet and visible radiation. Eumelanin biopolymers have also been proposed for optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications but isolation of natural eumelanin is a difficult task. Therefore, it is beneficial to synthesize synthetic eumelanin materials, which mimics the natural pigment. Currently, we have synthesized an eumelanin-inspired indole core, methyl 4,7-dibromo-5,6-dimethoxy-N-methyl-1H-indole-2-carboxylate which can serve as a new building block for organic semiconductors. Here, we present our efforts toward the synthesis and characterization of eumelanin-inspired polyindoles using different cross coupling methods such as Suzuki Miyaura and Grignard Metathesis.

Synthesis of eumelanin- inspired polyindoles

249th National Meeting (2015)

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