An "attachment through coordination" approach to side chain dendritic polymers

This paper reports the synthesis of side chain dendritic polymers by a newly developed "attachment through coordination" methodology. Initially, aromatic/aliphatic polyethers bearing two uncomplexed terpyridine (tpy) groups per repeating unit are prepared, and dendritic fragments corefunctionalized with tpy-(RuCl3)-Cl-III moieties are afterwards attached onto these free tpy side groups. The two second-generation alkoxy- decorated side dendrons employed here provided solubility in the final polymeric system and potential for the development of ordered structures. Selective complexation between terpyridines and ruthenium ions proved to be an efficient tool for the complete coverage of all initial polymeric-tpy groups. Perfectly substituted dendronized polymers carrying two (dendritic)tpy-Ru-II-tpy side moieties per repeating unit were thus synthesized, as demonstrated by their H-1 NMR characterization. A polymerizable macromonomer diol already carrying the side (dendritic)tpy-Ru(II-)tpy moieties was synthesized at the same time, enabling subsequent polymerization through the "macromonomer" growth approach. (c) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2005)