| Summary: | Polymetallocenes based on ferrocene, and to a lesser extent cobaltocene, have been well-studied, whereas analogous systems based on nickelocene are virtually unexplored. We have previously shown that poly(nickelocenylpropylene) [Ni(η5-C5H4)2(CH2)3]n is formed as a mixture of cyclic (6x) and linear (7) components by the ring-opening polymerisation (ROP) of tricarba[3]nickelocenophane [Ni(η5-C5H4)2(CH2)3] (5). Herein we demonstrate the generality of this approach to main-chain polynickelocenes and describe the ROP of tetracarba[4]nickelocenophane [Ni(η5-C5H4)2(CH2)4] (8), and disila[2]nickelocenophane [Ni(η5-C5H4)2(SiMe2)2] (12) to yield predominantly insoluble homopolymers poly(nickelocenylbutylene) [Ni(η5-C5H4)2(CH2)4]n (13) and poly(tetramethyldisilylnickelocene) [Ni(η5-C5H4)2(SiMe2)2]n (14), respectively. The ROP of 8 and 12 were also found to be reversible at elevated temperature. To access soluble high molar mass materials, copolymerisations of 5, 8, and 12 were performed. SQUID magnetometry measurements of 13 and 14 indicated that these homopolymers behave as simple paramagnets at temperatures greater than 50 K, with significant antiferromagnetic coupling that is notably larger in carbon-bridged 6x/7 and 13 compared to the disilyl-bridged 14. However, the behaviour of these polynickelocenes deviates substantially from the Curie-Weiss law at low temperatures due to considerable zero-field splitting.
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