Synthesis of Poly(thymol) via Oxidative Coupling Polymerization

The oxidative polymerization of thymol was performed using a copper chloride(I) catalyst with a bulky 2-(p-tolyl)pyridine ligand in toluene under oxygen atmosphere; the reaction produced linear poly(thymol) (PPETh) with a number average molecular weight (M-e) and its distribution (M-w/M-n) of 43,000 and 1.6, respectively. The resulting polymer consists of an almost perfect C-O linkage with good solubility, such as in toluene, chloroform, tetrahydrofuran, and N-methylpyrrolidone, when the polymerization was conducted below 40 b degrees C. The resulting PPETh is an amorphous polymer with glass transition temperature (T-g) and 5 wt% loss temperature in nitrogen (T-d5) of 130 degrees C and 402 degrees C, respectively. The transparent pale-yellow film was obtained by solvent casting method.