Influence of solvent used on oxidative polymerization of Poly(3-hexylthiophene) in their chemical properties

Abstract

The aim of the study is to utilize the simplicity of oxidative polymerization with ferric chloride to originates poly(3-hexylthiophene) of lower molecular weight. So, the chloroform, in general used as solvent in this synthesis, was switched by dichloromethane. The obtained polymers were characterized by infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), ultra-violet visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) were used to evaluate the structure, conjugation length, molecular weight and regioregularity with the goal of comparing these properties with those of poly (3-hexylthiophene) synthesized in chloroform. Despite large difference observed in molecular weight of polymers obtained by chloroform and dichloromethane, no significant differences were observed of these polymers in regioregularity and conjugation length.

Keywords:
ferric chloride; oxidative coupling; poly(3-alkylthiophene); poly(3-hexylthiophene)