Dehydrobrominative polycondensation of 2-bromo-3-hexylthiophene proceeded with TMPMgBr•LiBr and (TMP) 2 Mg•2LiBr, formed by LiTMP and MgBr 2 , which was found to serve as a surrogate of the Knochel−Hauser base TMPMgCl•LiCl, and head-to-tail-type regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) was obtained with high efficiency. The regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) was also found to be obtained by one-shot addition of 2-bromo-3-hexylthiophene as a monomer, magnesium amide, and a nickel catalyst, suggesting that complete formation of metalated thiophene species is not an essential requisite for the successful polymerization with a nickel catalyst. This method was employed for the preparation of tolylterminated polythiophene by an aryl group with narrow molecular weight distribution using (o-tolyl)NiCldppp as a catalyst.

Spherical molecularly imprinted polymer particles for bisphenol A (BPA-MIP) were easily prepared by using a Y-junction microfluidic device. The sizes of the obtained BPA-MIP particles were found to be 86 µm with a narrow size distribution. The binding characteristics were investigated by drawing a binding isotherm to estimate the binding constant and by switching the polarity of solvents to examine the feasibility of use as a medium for affinity chromatography. When dichloromethane was used as a solvent, BPA was strongly bound to the spherical BPA-MIP particles based on hydrogen bond formation; after switching the solvent to methanol, BPA was eluted quantitatively due to the weakening of the hydrogen bonding, suggesting that the spherical BPA-MIP particles can be applied to affinity-type solid-phase extraction for BPA. As the present method can provide a diverse range of spherical MIPs without tedious procedures, MIP-based affinity media will be able to be more readily used as pretreatment and/or purification for various fields.

Hydrophobic TPEN (N,N,N',N'-tetrakispyridylmethyl-1,2-ethylenediamine) derivatives are prepared by [2+2+2]cycloaddition of 1,-diyne and bromoacetonitrile leading to bromomethylpyridine and following reaction of 1,2-ethylenediamine. The obtained TPEN derivatives are employed for extraction of a soft metal ion such as cadmium(II).

Compound (Vc) is copolymerized with N‐isopropyl acrylamide to form a TREN‐NIPA gel which is employed to perform temperature‐dependent extraction of Cd2+ ions.