Cis–trans isomerism shown by the polymer containing chalcone moiety in its side chain

Polymer containing chalcone moiety showed a cis–trans isomerism. Two novel acrylate monomers, 4‐[3‐(2,4‐dichloro‐phenyl)3‐oxoprop‐1‐en‐1‐yl]phenylacrylate (DCP) and 4‐(3‐(4‐((4‐(4‐(3‐(2,4‐dichlorophenyl)‐3‐oxoprop‐1‐en‐1‐yl)phenoxy)‐6‐((4‐nitrophenyl)amino)‐1,3,5‐triazin‐2‐yl)oxy)phenyl)‐3‐oxoprop‐1‐en‐1‐yl)phenyl acrylate (TCP) were synthesized and copolymer with acrylic acid. All the monomers and polymer were characterized by IR, NMR and UV techniques. The M_w of the DCP based polymer and TCP based polymer were 4000 and 10,000 g/mol respectively. DCP and TCP based polymer showed double stage and single stage decomposition respectively. The reactivity ratio of the polymers showed that the poly(DCP‐co‐AA) formed random polymerization whereas poly(TCP‐co‐AA) formed alternate copolymerization. The poly(TCP‐co‐AA) showed excellent photoisomerism whereas poly(DCP‐co‐AA) showed photocycloaddition reaction. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.