Microwave-assisted polymer chemistry: Heck-reaction, transesterification, Baeyer-Villiger oxidation, oxazoline polymerization, acrylamides, and porous materials

Several questions are still open concerning the different effects of microwave (MW) irradiation in organic and macromolecular chemistry. Analyzing experimental results on a relatively broad investigation area, we came to elucidate three main effects of microwave irradiation: efficient non-contact heating, an accelerating effect, and what we term a special effect. In this paper, we report the first MW-assisted synthesis of poly(2,5-dibutoxy-1,4-phenylenevinylene) via Heck-polycondensation as an example for efficient heating. The facile synthesis of the higher lactones 1-oxa-2-oxocyclooctanone and 1-oxa-2-oxocyclononanone via Baeyer-Villiger reaction offers indeed an example for the MW-accelerating effect. A survey of our recent work is also given to explain the effects more in detail and to provide examples of the special MW effect. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.