Uncatalyzed Synthesis and Properties of Polyacetylene with N-Pentylpyridinium Iodide

Abstract

Uncatalyzed synthesis of a new ionic conjugated polymer, poly(3-ethynyl-N-pentylpyridinium iodide) [P3EPPI] was performed by the activated polymerization of 3-ethynylpyridine using 1-iodopentane. The polymerization proceeded in homogeneous manner to provide a moderate yield of polymer. The polymer structure was characterized by such instrumental methods as NMR (¹H- and ¹³C-), IR, and UV-visible spectroscopies to have a conjugated polymer backbone system having N-pentyl-3-pyridinium iodide as substituents. The photoluminescence maximum peak of P3EPPI was located at 534 nm, which corresponds to the photon energy of 2.32 eV. The cyclovoltamograms of polymer exhibited the electrochemically stable window at the −1.53∼1.50 V region. The kinetics of the redox process of P3EPPI was found to be mainly controlled by the reactant diffusion process from the experiment of the oxidation current density of polymer versus the scan rate.

Keywords:

• 3-ethynylpyridine
• 1-iodopentane
• polyacetylene
• conjugated polymer
• photoluminescence
• cyclic voltammogram.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the research fund of Kyungil University and a grant No. RTI04-01-04 from the Regional Technology Innovation Program of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE), Korea. This work was also supported by the Korea Research Foundation (KRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (No. R01–2008-000–21056-0). The authors thank Mrs S. E. Chae of Korea Basic Science Institute-Taegu Branch for the measurement of 500-MHz FT-NMR spectra of polymers.