Organoselenium Chemistry-Based Polymer Synthesis

Selenium-containing polymers have become one of the researches focuses of polymer materials in recent years, because of their unique properties. Firstly, selenium can transform among various states of selenoxide, selenone, and selenium free radicals and then be restored under these conditions, which offered these polymers with multiresponsive behaviors, including to redox changes, light, radiation, etc. Secondly, these polymers showed characteristic properties. Selenium-containing polymers exhibit unique multiple optical-electrical characteristics, including high photoconductivity, anisotropic thermoconductivity, high piezoelectric and thermoelectric response, and high refractive index. Based on these various properties, selenium-containing polymers are regarded as excellent functional polymer materials. Therefore, it is meaningful to synthesize selenium-containing polymers with varied structures. This paper principally gives a summary of organic reactions of organoselenium compounds and reviews research works on the synthesis of selenium-containing polymers by different methods, such as selenium-containing monomers and their polymerization, selenium-containing initiators for polymerization, selenium-containing mediators for controlled polymerization and selenium-containing molecules for postmodification of polymers. Moreover, applications of selenium-containing polymers were described including intrinsic high refractive index polymeric materials, oxidative- and reductive-responsive materials, dynamic exchanging polymers, selectively metal adsorbents and catalysts.