One-pot synthesis of monodisperse dual-functionalized polyethylene glycols through macrocyclic sulfates

Dual-functionalization of monodisperse oligoethylene glycols, especially hetero-functionalization, provides a series of highly valuable intermediates for life and materials sciences. However, the existing methods for the preparation of these compounds suffer excessive protecting and activating group manipulation as well as tedious purification. Here, a one-pot dual-substitution strategy with macrocyclic sulfates of polyethylene glycols as the key intermediates was developed for the convenient and scalable preparation of a series of homo-functionalized and hetero-functionalized oligoethylene glycols in just 1 step. A high synthetic efficacy was achieved by avoiding the protecting and activating group manipulation and the intermediate purification.