title: Well-defined boron-containing polymeric lewis acids.
abstract: A general new route to well-defined polymeric Lewis acids via borylation of silylated polymers is reported. Trimethylsilylated polystyrene (PS-Si) of controlled molecular weight and low polydispersity (PDI < 1.15) was obtained via atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of 4-(trimethylsilyl)styrene. The functional polymer PS-Si was quantitatively borylated using BBr3 to give poly(4-dibromoborylstyrene) (PS-B), a novel soluble boron-containing polymeric Lewis acid. PS-B readily reacted with nucleophiles serving as a precursor to a family of new polymers with boron centers of variable Lewis acidity. Reaction of PS-B with Cu(C6F5) gave the highly Lewis acidic polymer poly[4-bis(pentafluorophenyl)borylstyrene], the first polymeric analogue of tris(pentafluorophenyl)borane.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Rutgers University-Newark, 73 Warren Street, New Jersey 07102, USA.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.forename: Guanglou
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Anand
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sundararaman
authors.forename: Frieder
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jäkle