Chem. Commun.: a new boron nitrogen framework and a new "polystyrene"

New catalyst, new synthesis route A new world gate of boron nitrogen inorganic polymer was opened The structure of [hn-bph] 3 (a) and [hn-b (p-cf3c6h4)] 3 (b) (source: chem Commun.) as we know, organic polymer materials, or polymer materials, have launched a successful revolution in our material world In today's world, organic polymer materials are everywhere From the resin of glasses and lenses, to the chemical fiber materials used in various kinds of clothes, and the pure polymer lineage from the inside to the inside of outdoor clothing (the main polyurethane fiber and surface waterproof coating, even zipper and various accessories are often required for the outdoor clothing with waterproof and thermal insulation functions), it may not be expected that it is also a polymer material at ordinary times imitation marble Organic polymers, especially synthetic polymers, have successfully replaced a lot of traditional materials and opened up new application fields of materials Imagine a world without polymers, even if there are no more plastic bags, which is enough to make us at a loss for many times The synthetic route of 2a and 2B (source: chem Commun.) polystyrene (PS) is an important material in today's society, whose uses range from protective packaging materials to disposable tableware In order to find new materials with useful properties, researchers try to use inorganic chains to copy these structures Recently, a hot spot is silicone materials Now Ian maners and his team at the University of Bristol in the UK are trying to use boron and nitrogen instead of carbon chains as structural skeletons to make inorganic polymers In the catalytic dehydrogenation coupling reaction studied by scientists in the field of hydrogen storage and transfer, amines and boranes react together to generate hydrogen and a series of low molecular weight boron nitrogen products, which aroused the interest of the manners team Using this process, they took the lead in developing a process for the production of long-chain polymers based on boron nitrogen skeleton On this basis, they used it to form boron nitrogen skeleton polymer with inorganic benzene like side group, an inorganic polymer with structure similar to polystyrene The key to this process is iridium based catalyst Finding a catalyst that can produce inorganic polymers instead of depolymerization products is a real challenge because the energy barrier of these inorganic polymers is much lower than their "original" Although the new inorganic polymer is very similar to its carbon based "original" in structure, its properties are very different For example, its thermal stability is much lower, which means it is easier to degrade than polystyrene, but researchers can adjust it by changing the side group The results show that these materials can be used as "flame retardant thermoplastic and elastomer, precursor of 2D hybrid materials, radiation sensitive polymer and recyclable materials" Based on the GPC maps and photos of 2a and 2B (source: chem Commin.), the manners team reported the synthesis and characterization of the first polystyrene like inorganic polymer 2a and 2b with boron nitrogen framework Although it is similar to carbon based "original" in appearance, it is found that 2A has marginal thermal stability By introducing CF 3 group on the aryl substituent in 2B, the stability of the system was improved This provides a precedent for the formation of thermally stable materials through the introduction of additional electron absorbing groups on boron in the future The research team will also continue to study how to improve the thermal stability of this material, and consider adding crosslinking agents to make it cross-linked internally to form a network structure In addition, the possibility of boron nitrogen skeleton inorganic polymer and graphene composite materials can also be explored All in all, this is an exciting new world, including silicon-based organic like materials Will these new inorganic polymers embark on the road of revolution of organic polymers, thus rewriting the new concepts of "organic" and "inorganic"? We'll see Introduction of corresponding author: H ttp:// paper link: H ttp://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2017/cc/c7cc07331c ා! Divabstract