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Synfacts 2006(12): 1230-1230  
DOI: 10.1055/s-2006-955581
Synthesis of Materials and Unnatural Products
© Georg Thieme Verlag Stuttgart · New York

Increasing Molecular Weight of a Helical Polymer through Polymerization in a Chiral Solvent

Contributor(s): Timothy M. Swager, Mark S. Taylor
S. J. Holder*, M. Achilleos, R. G. Jones
University of Kent, Canterbury, UK
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Publication History

Publication Date:
22 November 2006 (online)

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Significance

Employing limonene as a chiral, nonracemic solvent has a marked effect upon the molecular weight of the product obtained by Wurtz polymerization of dichloromethylphenyl­silane. The high-molecular-weight fraction of the MW distribution increased when the reaction was carried out in enantioenriched, rather than racemic, limonene. Circular dichroism and UV-Vis spectroscopy indicated that polymethylphenylsilane, which adopts a helical conformation, exhibits a helix-sense excess when dissolved in enantio­enriched limonene.