Patent ID: 8629216

Claim:
A process for producing a side-chain modified polymer, comprising: deprotonating a polymer with an arylene main chain in a metal organic reaction that yields a metalized polymer, the metal organic reaction involving a metallic species selected from the group consisting of Li, Na, and halides of Mg and Zn, the halides being chloride, bromide or iodide; reacting the metalized polymer with a di-halogen compound to yield a polymer with one or more halogenated side chain, the di-halogen compound having two or more carbons; and reacting the polymer with the one or more halogenated side chain with a nucleophilic species of the general formula rNu-R 2 Y m , to yield polymeric ionomers having the following structure: wherein: Ar is a repeating unit of the arylene main chain polymer; n is the number of the repeating units; R 1 is H, F or an alkyl- or aryl residue; r is the number of side chains for each of the repeating units; x is the length of each side chain; Nu is a nucleophilic compound; and Y is selected from the group consisting of: in which X is selected from the group consisting of halogens, OH, OM + , OR 2 , and N(R 3 ) 2 , M + being a univalent metal cation, and R 2 and R 3 each being selected from the group consisting of H, alkyl residues and aryl residues.