Polyaromatic ethers and thioethers coordinated to cyclopentadienyliron cations.

A review describes the use of arene cyclopentadienyliron complexes in monomer and polymer synthesis. Chloroarene complexes undergo facile nucleophilic arom. substitution reactions with bis-phenols and bis-thiols to produce polymers with ether and thioether spacers in their backbones. This represents an alternative route to the synthesis of polyarom. ethers and thioethers using mild reaction conditions. An added benefit to utilizing this metal-mediated methodol. is that the resulting organometallic polymers displayed good soly. in polar org. solvents such as acetone, dichloromethane, acetonitrile, DMF, and DMSO. In contrast, on removal of the metallic moieties pendent to the polymer backbones using photolytic means, many of the resulting org. polymers were insol. in common org. solvents.