Brantley & Long’s Collaborative Research
The Brantley Lab and the Long Group published collaborative research “Vinyl-addition polymerizations of cycloallenes: synthetic access to congeners of cyclic-olefin polymers” in Polymer Chemistry. Co-first authors include Nick Galan with the Brantley Lab and Justin Burroughs with the Long Group.
Their research demonstrates that vinyl-addition polymerization of cycloallenes is a potentially valuable strategy for preparing tunable analogues of cycloolefin polymers. Cycloallenes can be polymerized in a well-controlled manner at room temperature using a simple Ni catalyst.
“This route does not require high strain monomers to achieve cyclic motif incorporation, and copolymerization with acyclic monomers is possible, but not required to achieve good conversion,” Galan said. “Taken together, these results suggest that vinyl-addition polymerizations of cyclic allenes could provide a reliable synthetic route toward heretofore inaccessible materials.”