ELECTRONIC EFFECTS OF POLYFLUORINATED SUBSTITUENTS ON THE POLYMERIZATION AND THE PROPERTIES OF POLYTHIOPHENES

Three series of polythiophenes containing fluoroalkoxy and fluoroether substituentswere prepared by electrochemical polymerization. The effect of substituents with fluoro-alkoxy or ether functional groups on the electrochemical polymerization of thiophene mono-mers and properties of the obtained polymers were analyzed. The introduction of a flu-oroether functional group at the 3-position of the thiophene ring leads to an increase ofthe oxidation potential of the monomer and to a decrease of the conductivity of the re-sulting polymers, even with the use of a CH_2 group as spacer. Conversely, the presenceof an oxygen atom directly at the 3-position of the thiophene ring, which offsets the nega-tive withdrawing effect of fluoroalkyl groups, facilitates the synthesis of highly conductingpolythiophenes.     

STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS AND ENVIRONMENTAL STABILITY OF POLYFLUORINATED GROUP SUBSTITUTED POLYTHIOPHENES

Electrochemical polymerization of 3-fluoroalkoxy and 3-fluoroether thiophenes givespolymers with relatively high molecular weights and good processibility. Investigationof these polymers by means of GPC indicates that an increase in the number of fluorineatoms in the fluorinated group results in a decrease in degree of polymerization of thepolymers in the same polythiophene series. As shown by NMR and FTIR, the polyfluo-rinated group substituted polythiophenes have regular 2, 5-coupling in their main chains.The SEM micrographs of the polymer films exhibit that polymer (1)-poly [3-2, 2, 3, 3-tetrafluoro-propoxy) thiophene] possesses more regular structure than the other polymersdo. Substitution of polythiophenes by fluorinated groups leads to the polymers with highelectric, electrochemical and thermal stability.