Department of Chemistry, University of Quebec at Montreal

N-Heterocyclic Carbene-Based Metallopolymers and their Corresponding Metal Nanoparticles

Abstract: Incorporating metal centers into carbon-based polymers has shown to be an effective strategies to access new functional materials with applications in various areas of science and technology.¹ To date, metallopolymers incorporating about 30 different metals in combination with a wide range of ligands have been reported. Among the ligand component, multi-dentate N-donors and cyclopentadiene moieties have been widely used.¹ However, those based on N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have been significantly underdeveloped. This is surprising because NHCs are known to form exceptionally strong bonds to a variety of transition metals. In the realm of polymer chemistry, only handful examples of NHC-metal polymers exist.^2,3 Our group has recently started working in this area to develop novel approaches to synthesize polymerized NHC-metal complexes. In this presentation, I will discuss some of the advances we have made in accessing such polymers. In addition, the application of these metallopolymers as substrates in the bottom-up fabrication of metal nanoparticles and the stabilities of the resulting materials will be presented.