Synthesis of Dendrimer-like Molecules with Partial Carbon-Chain via Iterative Single Unit Monomer Insertions.

Carbon-chain dendritic polymers hold unique properties and promising applications. However, synthesizing carbon-chain dendrimers, beyond conjugated ones, remains a challenge. Here, we described the use of the iterative single unit monomer insertions (SUMIs) technique for synthesizing 2.5 generation partial carbon-chain dendrimers (G2.5), utilizing bismaleimide as the core, a maleimide-trithiocarbonate conjugate as the branching unit, and indene as the spacer unit, following a divergent growth strategy. The optimized conditions for synthesizing the maleimide-trithiocarbonate branching unit were a bismaleimide to trithiocarbonate ratio of 5:1 and a reaction time of 30 minutes. The structures were verified using 1 H NMR, gel permeation chromatography, and MALDI-TOF MS. A four-arm star polymer was then synthesized using the G2.5 as the core. This synthesis of a partial carbon-chain dendrimer establishes a foundational step towards creating all carbon-chain ones and may open new application avenues in material science. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.