A New Approach to the Phosphorylation of Polymers

As it is known, phosphorous structures, which have many different uses from bio-applications to materials science, were integrated into polymer chemistry a long time ago and gained much interest over time. However, this chemistry, which is very valuable in the synthetic sense, cannot always be easily adapted to polymer chemistry due to harsh reaction conditions in most cases. After a long-standing demand, Durmaz group has finally presented a very practical method for the phosphorylation of polymers in mild conditions with a new approach, with effective methods. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hakan Durmaz, in this scientific study carried out by Gökhan Sağdıç and Özgün Dağlar, polymers of industrial and synthetic importance were effectively modified with phosphorus units and new unique properties were added to the aforementioned polymers. Synthetically speaking, in the first step, widely used industrial polymers were imparted azide-functionality, and then metal-free azide-alkyne click reactions were carried out between these polymers and the bis(diethoxyphosphoryl)acetylene structure. Very interestingly, even a polymer such as poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), which has synthetic importance and many uses, but sometimes has solubility problems, became soluble in alcohol media after this reaction, as observed in other modified polymers. As a very expected result, Polymer Chemistry, one of the leading journals in the field of synthetic polymer chemistry, which is very distinguished and highly recognized and respected in the scientific field, will have realized the importance of this study, so they carried this scientific masterpiece on the covers of 31st issue published on August 2021. Finally, the importance of the subject can be summarized with the following words of Prof. Dr. Hakan Durmaz: "This method we have developed opens the door to adapting classical polymers of industrial importance to different areas with brand new perspectives."