화학공학소재연구정보센터
Inorganic Chemistry, Vol.58, No.16, 10516-10526, 2019
Photooxidative Generation of Dodecaborate-Based Weakly Coordinating Anions
Redox-active proanions of the type B-12(OCH2Ar)(12) [Ar = C6F5 (1), 4-CF3C6H4 (2), 3,5-(CF3)(2)C6H3 (3)] are introduced in the context of an experimental and computational study of the visible-light initiated polymerization of a family of styrenes. Neutral, air stable proanions 1-3 were found to initiate styrene polymerization through single-electron oxidation under blue-light irradiation, resulting in polymers with number-average molecular weights (M-n) ranging from similar to 6 to 100 kDa. Shorter polymer products were observed in the majority of experiments, except in the case of monomers containing 4-X (X = F, Cl, Br) substituents on the styrene monomer when polymerized in the presence of 1 in CH2Cl2. Only under these specific conditions are longer polymers (>100 kDa) observed, strongly supporting the formulation that reaction conditions significantly modulate the degree of ion pairing between the dodecaborate anion and cationic chain end. This also suggests that 1-3 behave as weakly coordinating anions (WCA) upon one-electron reduction because no incorporation of the cluster-based photoinitiators is observed in the polymeric products analyzed. Overall, this work is a conceptual realization of a single reagent that can serve as a strong photooxidant, subsequently forming a WCA.