New Guanidine-Pyridine Copper Complexes and Their Application in ATRP

Abstract

The guanidine hybrid ligands, (tetramethylguanidine)methylenepyridine (TMGpy) and (dimethylethyleneguanidine)methylenepyridine (DMEGpy), were proven to be able to stabilize copper complexes active in the solvent-free polymerization of styrene at 110 °C using 1-phenylethylbromide as the initiator. The polymerization proceeded after first-order kinetics, and polystyrenes with polydispersities around 1.2 could be obtained. Using the ligand, DMEGpy, three new copper guanidine-pyridine complexes could be synthesized and structurally characterized. Their structural characteristics are discussed.

Keywords

• copper complexes
• hybrid guanidine ligands
• X-ray
• polymerization
• ATRP