Photolytic living anionic ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of silicon-bridged [1]ferrocenophanes via an iron-cyclopentadienyl bond cleavage mechanism

Makoto Tanabe; Ian Manners

doi:10.1021/ja046657s

Photolytic living anionic ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of silicon-bridged [1]ferrocenophanes via an iron-cyclopentadienyl bond cleavage mechanism

J Am Chem Soc. 2004 Sep 22;126(37):11434-5. doi: 10.1021/ja046657s.

Authors

Makoto Tanabe¹, Ian Manners

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, Davenport Laboratories, University of Toronto, 80 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3H6, Canada.

PMID: 15366878
DOI: 10.1021/ja046657s

Abstract

A new living anionic ring-opening polymerization (ROP) method for sila[1]ferrocenophane 1 was developed using UV irradiation in the presence of Na[C5H5] as a promoter to afford controlled molecular weight polymers (Mn = 9.3 x 103 to 7.0 x 104, PDI = 1.04-1.21). A ring-opened ferrocenylsilane with a dangling silyl-substituted cyclopentadienyl anion, which was obtained from a near-stoichiometric photoreaction of 1 with Li[C5H4Me], indicates an Fe-Cp bond cleavage mechanism for the photolytic ROP.