Improved metal-adhesive polymers from copper(I)-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition.

Electrically conductive adhesive polymers offer many potential advantages relative to Sn-Pb solders, including reduced toxicity, low cost, low processing temperatures, and the ability to make application-specific formulations. Polymers generated from the copper(I)-catalyzed cycloaddition (CuAAC) reaction between multivalent azides and alkynes have previously been identified as strong metal-binding adhesives. Herein we demonstrate that the performance of these materials can be remarkably improved by the incorporation of a flexibility-inducing difunctionalized component and a tertiary amine additive in optimized concentrations.