Copper removal from polymers by diethyldithiocarbamate complexation

Despite the importance of copper-catalyzed reactions in preparing functional polymeric materials, trace amounts of copper remaining in the final product is often an issue, especially for polymers having high affinity towards copper ions. We developed a new copper removal method that dissociates strongly coordinated copper impurities form the polymer using diethyldithiocarbamate (DTC) as a complexing ligand followed by size exclusion chromatography to separate the copper-free polymer from the copper/DTC complex. This method could be applied to remove trace amounts of copper from a wide variety of polymers prepared by copper-catalyzed reactions.