Work

Unclicking the Click: A Depolymerizable Clicked Polymer via Two Consecutive Single‐Crystal‐to‐Single‐Crystal Reactions

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: We report here a clicked polymer that can be depolymerized by a declicking reaction. A designed dipeptide monomer, upon heating its crystals, underwent a single-crystal-to-single-crystal topochemical ene-azide cycloaddition polymerization to form a triazoline-linked polymer, which upon further heating, underwent a remarkable SCSC denitrogenation, resulting in an imine-linked polymer quantitatively. As both the TEAC polymerization and the denitrogenation occurred in SCSC fashion, the structures of the triazoline-linked polymer and the imine-linked polymer could be determined at atomic resolution by SCXRD. Acid hydrolysis of the imine-linked polymer leads to quantitative depolymerization, yielding a dipeptide, showcasing the degradability and depolymerizability of such polymers. This solid-state click polymerization and denitrogenation yielding depolymerizable polymer is attractive over the usual click polymers that cannot be unclicked.

Source: Angewandte Chemie International Edition

DOI: 10.1002/anie.202417905

Authors: Bichu Sebastian, Kana M. Sureshan

Institution: Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Polymer Synthesis and Characterization

Subfield: Organic Chemistry

Field: Chemistry

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: bronze

Funder: Science and Engineering Research Board

Awards: G1559300866, G1716843800, G3394503586, G6617986162