Introducing the Ugi reaction into polymer chemistry as a green click reaction to prepare middle-functional block copolymers

Abstract

Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) and click reactions have a number of significant features in common, such as modularity, high efficiency and atom economy. Some MCRs can thus be considered as a new type of click reaction: a multicomponent click reaction. The well-known Ugi reaction has been utilized as a green click reaction to efficiently stitch two different polymer chains together under very benign conditions (25 °C, catalyst free). Mid-functional block copolymers and miktoarm star copolymers which are normally difficult to synthesize have thus been easily prepared, indicating the promising potential of the Ugi reaction in polymer chemistry to prepare sophisticated structural copolymers.