A high purity approach to poly(3-hexylthiophene) diblock copolymers

A study was conducted to investigate the occurrence of side reactions during the synthesis of well defined poly(3-hexythiophene) (P3HT) microinitiators, using standard procedures. The study also demonstrated the preparation of high purity macroinitiators and P3HT-block-polymethylacrylate copolymers (P3HT-b-PMA). 2,5-dibromo-3-HT was synthesized by reaction of two equivalent of NBS, with 3-HT and polymerized to give allyl-terminated P3HT by GRIM procedures. The process was followed, to demonstrate the preparation of well defined P3HT macroinitiators and P3HT-block-polymethylacrylate copolymers. The reaction procedure was followed by the termination with allylmagnesium bromide. The allyl-terminated P3HT was also fractionated by sequential Soxhlet extraction with hexane. The polymer obtained by extraction with dichloromethane was used to conduct the investigations. It was observed that regioregularity of P3HT 2 was 92.1%, as estimated from the integration ratio of relevant peaks.