Role of Polymeric Solid In Organic Synthesis: Exploring the Role of Functionalized Polymers in Organic Chemical Transformations

Abstract

The application of functionalized polymers for affecting a host of organic chemical transformations has achieved wide-spread acceptance ever since the introduction of the solid-phase peptide synthesis. For the last 3 decades, a number of such systems which find applications in the field of organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, bio-chemistry, biology and medicine have been developed.When polymers are used as supports for organic reagents or catalysts, the reactivity and selectivity of these attached functions are seriously affected by the so-called polymer effects. These may be physical in nature as in the case of diffusion effects, steric effects, site isolation effects and local concentration effects. It can also be chemical, like, micro environmental interaction and coordination unsaturation. The earlier concept about the polymers as only passive supports can no longer be perceived now.A cross linked macromolecule can behave as a gel if the degree of cross linking is low. Thus the reactions using lightly cross linked polymers could be viewed as taking place in the gel-phase. In these polymeric systems, reactive functions are attached to the macromolecular matrix so as to perform the desired chemical transformations. Here the microscopic properties of the reagent functions attached to the macro molecular are taken into account, rather than the bulk properties of the polymers. Reactive polymers could be produced either by the fictionalization of preformed polymer or by the co- polymerization of functional monomers with an extra functionality which does not participate in polymerization.