Poly Chlorotrifluoroethylene Substituted Reactions

Richard T. Taylor, J. A Shah, John W. Green and T. Kamolratanayothin 

Among the fluorine-containing polymers of commercial importance, our polymer of choice was PCTFE, the homopolymer of chlorotrifluoroethylene. The reason for choosing this polymer was the assumption that the chloride group would have sufficient reactivity to allow chemical modifications (Equation 1), but, in the most likely case that such modifications were incomplete, would be inert toward the ultimate reagents and substrates when the functionalized polymers were applied in their subsequent uses in carrying out organic reactions. 

Our early work examined the reaction of PCTFE with sulfur, selenium and phosphorous nucleophiles 9 to achieve high levels of functionalization through a well-precedented (in the case of perfluoroalkyl iodides)20 24 one electron transfer, radical anion chain process. While such a reaction demonstrated the feasibility of using one-electron processes for the functionalization of PCTFE, the carbon-sulfur linkage remained susceptable to oxidation. 

For the purpose of arriving at polymeric reagents the formation of a carbon-carbon bond via radical means was desired. Trapping radicals in this way has been well known to modern organic chemists25. However, our problem in modifying PCTFE by this method was the heterogeneity of the polymer. In the solid state, PCTFE may be excluded from a solution-mediated reaction, and recovered unreacted. 

Some neutral metal carbonyls, particularly coordinatively unsaturated ones, are sufficiendy nucleophilic to undergo reaction with organic halides. Sigma-alkyl species which undergo subsequent CO insertion are formed by such reactions27. Hence, carbonylations 

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