In this project funded by the Chemical Catalysis Program and the Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Professor Anne McNeil of the University of Michigan is developing new methods to prepare conjugated polymers. Polymers are long chain organic molecules that derive many of their properties from the entanglements and interactions between the chains. Polymers have become ubiquitous materials in our daily lives, impacting most industries, including agriculture and food, health and safety, as well as transportation. While most of these materials are insulating a subset, known as conjugated polymers, can conduct charge and have been used as active components in light-harvesting solar cells and light-emitting displays. Professor McNeil will study new chemistries to connect molecules together to form conjugated polymers. The market for conducting polymers is estimate to grow to $ 1.6 billion by 2017, so the impact of developing a this polymerization methodology is potentially significant. The broader impacts further involve training undergraduate and graduate students, mentoring undergraduate students from minority groups underrepresented in the chemical sciences, and disseminating research results broadly through presentations at conferences and publications in journals.
Chain-growth polymerization methods for synthesizing conjugated polymers remains limited to a narrow set of electron-rich monomers. In this project, Professor McNeil is studying radical anion catalysis to synthesize conjugated, electron deficient polymers in a chain-growth fashion. Model systems for the putative radical anion mechanism-based olgomerization of the subject compounds are being developed and studied with the goal of understanding and controlling the initiation and propagation chemistries. A combination of kinetic and mechanistic analyses using reactivity studies, EPR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, are being applied to gain insights into the chemistries of these systems and then to convert this knowledge into polymerization methodology. These studies should make a significant impact on the field as donor/acceptor copolymers with specified compositions, sequences, lengths and dispersities will be accessible for the first time.
