Anionic synthesis of telechelic polyacetylene

Poly(phenyl vinyl sulfoxide) which is a soluble precursor to polyacetylene can be prepared using the 'living' anionic synthesis method. The thermal labile sulfoxide moieties can be readily converted to acetylenic units upon heating. In this report, a series of monodisperse end-functionalized soluble precursors were prepared. Details on the synthesis and characterization procedures were described. The end groups were either Li, Na, or Cs salts of carboxylic acid and were the result of using the respective electron-transfer di-functional metal naphthalide initiator. The IR spectra for the resulting telechelic polyacetylene are also given.