Highly Versatile Strategy for the Production of Telechelic Polyolefins

A general and versatile synthetic strategy for producing practical quantities of a wide range of phenyl-group-terminated hetero- and homotelechelic semicrystalline polyethenes and amorphous atactic and semicrystalline isotactic poly(alpha-olefins) is reported. The phenyl groups serve as synthons for functionalities of additional classes of telechelic polyolefins that can be unmasked through simple high yielding postpolymerization reactions. A demonstration of the value of these materials as building blocks for structural classes of polyolefin-based synthetic polymers was provided by syntheses of well-defined polyolefin-polyester di- and triblock copolymers that were shown to adopt microphase-segregated nanostructured mesophases in the condensed phase.

Automated summary

A general synthetic strategy is reported for producing various phenyl-group-terminated polyethenes and poly(alpha-olefins), which can be transformed into different telechelic polyolefins through postpolymerization reactions. These materials serve as building blocks for polyolefin-based synthetic polymers, as demonstrated by the syntheses of well-defined polyolefin-polyester di- and triblock copolymers.