Metallopolymers are an emerging class of materials that have found an array of applications, such as semiconductors, optical devices, and stimuli responsive materials. While polymeric frameworks have been decorated with various organometallic fragments, the incorporation of metallocarbene moieties within polymer architectures has been largely overlooked. This paucity is surprising, given the broad synthetic utility of metal carbenes (which could be leveraged for post synthetic tailoring of the bulk material’s properties). Access to well-defined metallocarbene polymers, then, could afford new platforms for the development of functional materials. Here, we report the synthesis of metal carbene-containing polymers using ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP). High degrees of polymerization were observed (&gt; 800 repeats), and the isolated materials exhibited excellent solubility and thermal stability. Moreover, the carbene subunits could be incorporated into block copolymers (e.g. heterometallic, non-metallic, etc.), which suggests this strategy is broadly applicable. The metallocarbene polymers were also found to release carbon monoxide (CO) under the action of multiple stimuli. As CO-releasing materials (CORMs) are increasingly sought after for biomedical applications, the reported polymers could afford important insight into design principles for next-generation CORMs.

Metallocarbene-containing polymers: New directions in metallopolymer science

2019 Fall National Meeting

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