Development of Hydroarylation and Dehydration Methods for Conjugated Polymers

Abstract

Conjugated polymers represent an important next step for solar cell, field effect transistor, and light emitting diode technologies. However, there are several drawbacks to the current syntheses of this class of polymer that limit the field. The current routes to access conjugated polymers suffer from one or more of: synthetic complexity of the monomers, poor heteroaromatic tolerance or toxic by-products. Here we present two new methods to address these issues. First, a hydroarylation reaction to access poly(arylene vinylene)polymers and, second, a dehydration reaction of thiazole N-oxides for poly(heteroarene) polymers.