Pentiptycene ether sulfone macromonomers for the synthesis of polymers of intrinsic microporosity

The incorporation of pentiptycene moieties into polymers as a porosity inducing motif has been gaining attention in recent years as a robust strategy to prevent chain packing in the solid state. Herein, we report the synthesis and characterization of pentiptycene containing macromonomers. The halide substituent on the monomers provides access to different polymerization conditions. Macromonomers afford polymers through nucleophilic aromatic substitution, Yamamoto, and Suzuki-Miyaura polymerizations. These polymers are thermally robust as determined by TGA and DSC analysis. BET and WAXS analysis reveal that the pentiptycene moieties contribute substantially to the intrinsic porosity of the final polymer network. These studies also reveal that the nature of the comonomers plays a substantial role in determining the intrinsic porosity.