Sulfur-Containing Polymers

From Synthesis to Functional Materials

Xing-Hong Zhang, Patrick Theato

• Publisher: Wiley-VCH
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9783527346707
• eBook ISBN: 9783527823802
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Materials Science
• Index: Technology & Engineering

A must-have resource to the booming field of sulfur-containing polymers

Sulfur-Containing Polymers is a state-of-the-art text that offers a synthesis of the various sulfur-containing polymers from low-cost sulfur resources such as elemental sulfur, carbon disulfide (CS2), carbonyl sulfide (COS) and mercaptan. With contributions from noted experts on the topic, the book presents an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms related to the synthesis of sulfur-containing polymers. The book also includes a review of the various types of sulfur-containing polymers, such as: poly(thioester)s, poly(thioether)s and poly(thiocarbonate)s and poly(thiourethane)s with linear or hyperbranched (dendrimer) architectures. The expert authors provide the fundamentals on the structure-property relationship and applications of sulfur-containing polymers.

Designed to be beneficial for both research and application-oriented chemists and engineers, the book contains the most recent research and developments of sulfur-containing polymers. This important book:

• Offers the first comprehensive handbook on the topic
• Contains state-of-the-art research on synthesis of sulfur containing polymers from low-cost sulfur-containing compounds
• Examines the synthesis, mechanism, structure properties, and applications of various types of sulful-containing polymers
• Includes contributions from well-known experts

Written for polymer chemists, materials scientists, chemists in industry, biochemists, and chemical engineers, Sulfur-Containing Polymers offers a groundbreaking text to the field with inforamtion on the most recent research.

1
Synthesis of Sulfur-Containing Polymers Through Multicomponent Polymerizations

Yuzhang Huang¹, Rongrong Hu¹, and Ben Zhong Tang¹

¹South China University of Technology, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Luminescence from Molecular Aggregates, Center for Aggregation-Induced Emission, No. 381 Wushan Road, Tianhe District, 510640, Guangzhou, China

²The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Department of Chemistry, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

Abstract

Sulfur-containing polymers are a group of fascinating materials with their applications ranging from optics to electronics, clean energy to biological science. Recently, multicomponent polymerizations (MCPs) with high efficiency, simple operation, mild condition, environmental friendliness, and atom economy have received widespread attention and have developed into powerful tools for the synthesis of sulfur-containing polymers. In this chapter, the effort made for the development of diverse sulfur-containing polymers from MCPs in the past decade is introduced, including the synthesis of polythioamides and polythioureas from the elemental sulfur-based MCPs, the preparation of sulfonyl group-containing polymers from the sulfonyl azide or sulfonyl hydrazide-based MCPs, and the sequence-controlled sulfur-containing polymers prepared from the multicomponent tandem polymerizations of thiol or sulfur-containing heterocycle monomers. The preliminary investigations on the sulfur-containing polymer products of MCPs such as their applications in fluorescence chemosensor, heavy metal removal, precious metal recovery, and bioimaging were also introduced, suggesting their large potential as advanced functional materials.

Keywords: multicomponent polymerizations; elemental sulfur; sulfonyl azide; sulfur-containing polymers;

1.1 Introduction

Sulfur-containing polymers represent a group of popular advanced materials that have attracted much attention owing to their broad range of fascinating properties such as high refractivity [1], coordination with metal ion [2], self-healing property [3], dielectrical property [4], and unique electrochemical property [5]. The well-known sulfur-containing polymers include polythioethers [6], polythiophenes [7], polyoligosulfides [8], and vulcanized rubbers [9], which are generally prepared from classical thiol-ene/yne addition reactions [10], thiol-epoxy reaction [11], transition-metal catalyzed polycouplings [12], and other ring-opening reactions [13]. High sulfur-content materials with excellent optical properties were also reported to be prepared through inverse vulcanization with elemental sulfur [14,15]. However, the widely studied sulfur-containing polymers are still quite limited. Sulfur-containing polymers with new and complex structures remain rare, and their design and synthesis still face many challenges such as complicated and unstable monomer structures [16], poor solubility of polymers [17], chaotic product structures [18], etc. One effective approach is to develop new sulfur-containing polymer structures based on the exploration of new synthetic methodologies.

Multicomponent polymerizations (MCPs) as emerging polymer synthetic approaches combine three or more monomers in a one-pot reaction to construct complex polymers with high efficiency, great structural diversity, high atom economy, and well-defined structures [19]. During the past decade, with the inspiration from the progress in organic multicomponent reactions (MCRs), great effort has been made by polymer chemists to solve the problems regarding polymer solubility, structural regularity, narrow monomer scope, low conversion, molecular weight control, inhibition of side reactions, sequence control and topological control of the structures, and so on, and a series of efficient MCPs have been developed [20]. For example, the three-component Passerini polymerization of dialdehyde, dicarboxylic acids, and isocyanides was reported to access a class of polyesters [21]. Different combinations of various monomers were also applied to obtain sequence-regulated poly(ester-amine)s and hyperbranched polymers [22,23]. Many other MCPs such as Ugi four-component polymerizations [24], Biginelli polymerizations [25], Kabachnik–Fields polymerizations [26], alkyne, aldehyde, and amine A³-polycouplings [27], and a group of alkyne-based MCPs were reported [28–32]. Moreover, through diversity-oriented synthesis from different combinations of multiple types of monomers [33,34], MCPs can easily afford libraries of polymer materials with structural similarities.

Recently, MCPs prove to be powerful and popular tools for the construction of sulfur-containing polymers with unique structures and functionalities. The sulfur-related MCPs have been developed rapidly nowadays, and their recent progress will be summarized in this chapter. With their rich chemical properties and high reactivity, sulfur-containin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Introduction
• 1 Synthesis of Sulfur-Containing Polymers Through Multicomponent Polymerizations
• 2 Carbon Disulfide Derived Polymers
• 3 Carbonyl Sulfide Derived Polymers
• 4 Thiol-Based Click Polymerizations for Sulfur-Containing Polymers
• 5 Synthesis of Polythioesters
• 6 Polymers with Sulfur-Nitrogen Bonds
• 7 Thioester Functional Polymers
• 8 Thiophene-Based Polymers: Synthesis and Applications
• 9 High Refractive Index Sulfur-Containing Polymers (HRISPs)
• 10 Selenium-Containing Dynamic Polymers: From Synthesis to Functions
• 11 Poly(disulfide)s
• 12 Reduction-Responsive Disulfide-Containing Polymers for Biomedical Applications
• Index
• End User License Agreement