Rigid chain ribbon-like metallopolymers

A set of new copolymers is here reported in which the repeating units are connected each other through Cu(II) metal centers. The coordination link is based on the bis-chelating properties of salicylaldiminate groups of two different monomers. Due to their chemical structure, the two monomers afford, respectively, flexible and rigid repeating units in the metallocopolymers constitution upon coordination to copper centers. All the copolymers were soluble and easily processable. As shown by XRD analysis, rigid units' rich copolymers adopt a ribbon-like structure in solid state in which highly planar strands of polymer stack thanks to ?-? interactions, similarly to the polymer composed exclusively by rigid units. This behavior can be justified assuming the existence of a partial block character in copolymer constitution where long sequences of rigid units are alternated to sequences of flexible units. This assumption is supported also by DSC and UV-Vis analysis. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.