Helical Polymers via Asymmetric Coordination Polymerization

Significance

Chen and co-workers polymerized N,N-diaryl acrylamides at room temperature using chiral, cationic zirconocene enolate complexes as catalysts. Previously, these authors synthesized poly(dimethyl acrylamide)s with >99% isotacticity using a racemic version of this catalyst (W. R. Mariott, E. Y.-X. Chen Macromolecules 2004, 37, 4741). In this communication, different catalyst enantiomers (R,R or S,S) result in poly(diaryl acrylamide)s with opposite optical rotations. The backbone helicity arises due to steric congestion between the diaryl substituents. Controlled molecular weights with narrow polydispersities implicate a living polymeri­zation mechanism.