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Highly ordered alignment of a vinyl polymer by host–guest cross-polymerization

Nature Chemistry volume 5, pages 335–341 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Chain alignment can significantly influence the macroscopic properties of a polymeric material, but no general and versatile methodology has yet been reported to obtain highly ordered crystalline packing of polymer chains, with high stability. Here, we disclose a strategy that relies on ‘ordered crosslinks’ to produce polymeric materials that exhibit a crystalline arrangement. Divinyl crosslinkers (2,5-divinyl-terephthalate) were first embedded, as substitutional ligands, into the structure of a porous coordination polymer (PCP), [Cu(terephthalate)triethylenediamine0.5]n. A representative vinyl monomer, styrene, was subsequently polymerized inside the channels of the host PCP. The polystyrene chains that form within the PCP channels also crosslink with the divinyl species. This bridges together the polymer chains of adjacent channels and ensures that, on selective removal of the PCP, the polymer chains remain aligned. Indeed, the resulting material exhibits long-range order and is stable to thermal and solvent treatments, as demonstrated by X-ray powder diffraction and transmission electron microscopy.

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Figure 1: Schematic of host–guest cross-polymerization.
Figure 2: Solid-state NMR measurement of PSt.
Figure 3: Shape replication process from PCP to polymer.
Figure 4: Crystalline arrangement of PSt.
Figure 5: Controlled uniaxial alignment of PSt chains.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Asahi Glass Foundation and a Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Government of Japan. A.C. and P.S. thank the Cariplo Foundation and Lombardy Region for financial support. G.D. and T.U. thank Y. Chujo of Kyoto University for access to SEM-EDX apparatus. S.I. thanks H. Kurata of Kyoto University for use of the cryogenic TEM.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science, University of Milano – Bicocca, Via R. Cozzi 53, Milan, 20125, Italy

    Gaetano Distefano, Silvia Bracco, Angiolina Comotti & Piero Sozzani

  2. Department of Synthetic Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, Kyoto University, Katsura, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto, 615-8510, Japan

    Hirohito Suzuki, Takashi Uemura & Susumu Kitagawa

  3. Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (WPI-iCeMS), Kyoto University, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

    Masahiko Tsujimoto, Seiji Isoda & Susumu Kitagawa

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  1. Gaetano Distefano
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Contributions

T.U. conceived and directed the project. G.D. designed and performed the experiments. H.S. carried out the experiments. M.T. and S.I. performed TEM measurements and analysed the data. S.B., A.C. and P.S. performed the solid-state NMR measurements. G.D., A.C., P.S., T.U. and S.K. discussed the results and wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Takashi Uemura or Susumu Kitagawa.

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Distefano, G., Suzuki, H., Tsujimoto, M. et al. Highly ordered alignment of a vinyl polymer by host–guest cross-polymerization. Nature Chem 5, 335–341 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.1576

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