Stille Polycondensation for Synthesis of Functional Materials

The progress made in the development of the Stille coupling reaction for the preparation of functional polymers has been tremendous is presented. Corey and co-workers reported acceleration of the Stille reactions involving sterically hindered vinyl stannanes using CuCl as an additive. Fu and co-workers reported a general method for couplings involving chlorides and Chan et al. reported the use of Stille coupling to prepare rhenium-containing polymers for organic solar cell applications. McCulloch and co-workers prepared a thieno[2,3-b]-thiophene based polymer, where thieno- [2,3-b]thiophene was incorporated into a polythiophene backbone using the Stille polycondensation. In 2010, Yu et al. synthesized copolymer of benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene and thieno[3,4-b]thiophene using Pd(PPh3)4 as catalyst. Ng et al. prepared a series of thiophene-based polymers using Pd(PPh3) 2Cl2 as catalyst, though the molecular weights were relatively low.