Successive Synthesis of Well-Defined Star-Branched Polymers by “Convergent” Iterative Methodology Using Core-Functionalized 3-Arm Star-Branched Polymer and a Specially Designed 1,1-Diphenylethylene Derivative

The synthesis of well-defined regular and miktoarm star-branched polymers by a convergent iterative methodology using core-functionalized 3-arm star-branched polymer with 1,1-diphenylethylene (DPE) moiety and a specially designed DPE derivative is described. The methodology involves the following two reaction steps in the entire iterative synthetic sequence: 1) a coupling reaction of a star-branched polymer having an anion at the core with a DPE derivative with two benzyl bromide moieties, 1-{4-[5,5-bis(3-bromomethylphenyl)-7-methylnonyl]phenyl}-1-phenylethylene, and 2) an addition reaction of the resulting core-DPE-functionalized star-branched polymer with sec-BuLi to convert the DPE moiety to a DPE-derived anion. The iterative synthetic sequence including these two reaction steps, 1) and 2), was repeated to successively synthesize star-branched polymers with more arms. Iteration of this synthetic sequence doubled the number of the arms in the star-branched polymer. With this methodology, 6-arm, 12-arm, and 14-arm regular star-branched polystyrenes as well as 6-arm A₂B₂C₂, A₄B₂, and 12-arm A₄B₄C₄ and A₈B₄ miktoarm star-branched polymers with well-defined structures have been successfully synthesized.