Synthesis and characterization of regioregular alkyl-substituted poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophenes)

In order to increase the solubility of PEDOT, we introduced an alkyl chain into polymer backbone. Depending on the position of the alkyl bond, the steric hindrance between the alkyl chains can also leads to regioregularity in the polymer. The regioregular polymers can easily occur self-assembly, both in solution and in the solid state, resulting in highly ordered two- and three-dimensional polymer architectures. A series of soluble regioregular alkyl-substituted PEDOTs were synthesized using the Grignard Metathesis (GRIM) for the purpose of study on regiorandom and regioregular PEDOT. The ethylene proton adjacent to the oxygen atom of regioregular methoxydodecyl-PEDOT appears at 3.51 ppm, whereas the corresponding peak of regiorandom methoxydodecyl-PEDOT appears at 3.42 ppm.