Metathesis Cascade-Triggered Depolymerization of Enyne Self-Immolative Polymers

Abstract

A novel class of enyne self-immolative polymers (SIPs) capable of me-tathesis cascade-triggered depolymerization is reported. Studies on mod-el compounds established 1,6-enyne structures for efficient metathesis cascade reactions. SIPs incorporating the optimized 1,6-enyne motif were prepared via both polycondensation and iterative exponential growth ap-proaches. These SIPs demonstrated excellent stability in strong acid, base, and nucleophiles, and can undergo efficient and complete depoly-merization once triggered by a metathesis catalyst. Further studies re-vealed that introducing a terminal alkene to the chain end of the enyne SIPs improved the depolymerization efficiency, and established their potential as stimuli-responsive materials.