多组分反应是利用三种或者三种以上反应物一锅法得到终产物的反应。在此过程中,无需对中间产物进行分离提纯,而且几乎所有反应物的原子都出现在生成物当中。因此多组分反应经常被用来合成具有复杂结构的化合物。我们在多组分反应中引入可聚合元素,将功能化单体合成和可控聚合结合在一起,一步合成具有特殊官能结构的聚合物。这个体系中的反应均互不干扰,有着良好的匹配效果。因此,得到的产物具有可控的分子量和很窄的分子量分布。与传统方法相比,这种多组分聚合体系节省了反应时间、降低了合成成本、合成途径更加绿色经济。我们现已发展了多种多组分聚合体系,按照复杂程度不同分为二元、三元和四元体系。通过不同的有机小分子反应与可控聚合的结合,我们成功制备了一些通过其他聚合方法难以或是无法合成的新型聚合物,体现了这一聚合方法的特点和优势。随着对多组分聚合体系认识的不断深入,相信我们能够更简便地合成更多结构新颖的聚合物。
Multicomponent reactions (MCRs) are those reactions which incorporate three or more starting materials in one pot and prepare the final products effectively and efficiently. During multicomponent reactions, nearly all atoms from reactants contribute to the final product. Also, such reactions are free from lengthy intermediate separation and purification, so they have been widely used to synthesize complicated molecules such as drug precursors, bioactive molecules and so on. Our group has developed a unique system to carry out MCRs on the polymerization platform, combining monomer preparation and in situ controlled polymerization together in one-pot style, thus generating multifunctional polymers in one-step. The reactions involved in this system cooperated well without interference, thus generating well-defined products with controlled molecular weight and narrow polydispersity index (PDI). Compared with traditional multifunctional polymer synthesis techniques (step-by-step or post-modification approaches), this one-pot system has many intrinsic advantages: time-saving, atom-economic, green and highly efficient. By now, we have successfully developed several multicomponent polymerization systems, including binary, ternary and even quaternary systems. Meanwhile, the further applications of these systems have been investigated as well. We have demonstrated that chiral polymers and gradient polymers, which are difficult to be synthesized through orthodox approaches, could be easily andeffectively prepared in these systems. With more investigation and understanding about this one-pot multicomponent polymerization system, we believe that it could be a facile and versatile alternative methodology for multifunctional polymer synthesis and preparation in the near future.