Thiol-Ene Step-Growth as a Versatile Route to Functional Polymers

A new use of the thiol‐ene reaction to generate functional, redox‐tunable polymers is described. To illustrate the versatility of this approach, tailored divinyl ether monomers were polymerized with triethylene glycol dithiol to yield polymers containing either a carbonate or zwitterionic phosphocholine within the polymer backbone. Similarly, dithioerythritol was polymerized with triethylene glycol divinyl ether to yield a polymer with pendant diols and show how functional groups can be designed into either the divinyl ether or dithiol monomer. Using the thioether functional group inherent to this polymerization, all three polymers were selectively and quantitatively oxidized to either sulfoxides or sulfones by treatment with dilute hydrogen peroxide or mCPBA, respectively. With these illustrative examples, it is shown that the thiol‐ene polymerization is a broad‐reaching method to access a class of new redox‐active polymers which contain varied and dense functional‐group compositions. Click together: Through the click reaction of tailored dithiols and divinyl ethers, functional polymers containing both main‐chain (carbonate, zwitterion) and pendant (diol) functional groups were synthesized. The thioethers in these polymers were quantitatively oxidized to yield either sulfoxides (with aqueous H2O2) or sulfones (with m‐chloroperoxybenzoic acid), thus further adding to the overall polymer functionality.