Synthesis of metal containing polymers

The remarkable growth in the applications of organic polymers in the latter half of the twentieth century can mainly be attributed to their ease of preparation, and the useful mechanical properties and unique propensity for fabrication. Polymers containing metallic elements offer a wider range of novel characteristics and provide potential access to new processible functional polymeric materials and thus, study on the synthesis and prospective applications of metallopolymers have become an area of interest to polymer chemists. In this review, the procedures for the synthesis of organometallic polymers have been categorized in to three. These are: Polymerization through pre-formed metal complexes, Coordination of a metal ion by a preformed polymer containing chelating groups and Coordination reaction of a ligand which can attach itself simultaneously to two metal atoms or ions. Various literature reported under the above three headings were extensively reviewed.