Well-defined functional (supramolecular) polymers using efficient chemical transformations

The introduction of functional end-groups into well-defined polymer structures often requires post-polymn. modification steps that should provide quant. modification to avoid tedious sepns. of the functionalized polymer from the non-functionalized polymer chains. In addn., not all polymers can be easily combined by one polymn. method or via two subsequent polymn. mechanisms indicating the need for fast, high-yielding and versatile coupling methods. A large no. of rather common coupling methodologies, including isocyanate coupling and Diels-Alder reactions, can be used for the quant. prepn. of end-functionalized polymers. In addn., the recently introduced copper(I) mediated azide-alkyne cycloaddn. provides an excellent platform for quant. polymer functionalization. In this contribution, we report the synthesis of a variety of end-functionalized polymers using efficient coupling methodologies. The main focus will be on the prepn. of polymers bearing supramol. units on the chain end resulting in well-defined responsive polymeric architectures. [on SciFinder (R)]