Biomass-derived polymer materials are emerging as sustainable and low-carbon footprint alternatives to the current petroleum-based commodity plastics. In the past decade, the ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) technique has been widely used for the polymerization of cyclic olefin monomers derived from biorenewable resources, giving rise to a diverse set of biobased polymer materials. However, most synthetic biobased polymers made by ROMP are nondegradable because of their all-carbon backbones. Herein, we present a modular synthetic strategy to acid-degradable poly(enol ether)s via ring-opening metathesis copolymerization of biorenewable oxanorbornenes and 3,4-dihydropyran (DHP). 1H NMR analysis reveals that the percentage of DHP units in the resulting copolymers gradually increases as the feed ratio of DHP to oxanorbornene increases. The composition of the copolymers plays a pivotal role in governing their thermal properties. Thermogravimetric analysis shows that an increasing percentage of DHP results in a decrease in the decomposition temperatures, suggesting that the incorporation of enol ether groups in the polymer backbone reduces the thermal stability of the copolymers. Moreover, a wide range of glass transition temperatures (16–165 °C) can be achieved by tuning the copolymer composition and the oxanorbornene structure. Critically, all of the poly(enol ether)s developed in this study are degradable under mildly acidic conditions. A higher incorporation of DHP in the copolymer leads to enhanced degradability, as evidenced by smaller final degradation products. Altogether, this study provides a facile approach for synthesizing biorenewable and degradable polymer materials with highly tunable thermal properties desired for their potential industrial applications.
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Cationic copolymerization of isosorbide towards value-added poly(vinyl ethers)
Biomass-derived isosorbide (IS) was converted into a mono-glycal ( i.e. vinyl ether) derivative (Gly-IS) to investigate its efficacy for cationic polymerization. While homopolymerization was unsuccessful, likely due to the steric demand near the propagating cationic site, copolymerization with isobutyl vinyl ether (IBVE) revealed great promise for the use of Gly-IS as a rigid and sustainable comonomer. Traditional cationic methods yielded copolymers with IBVE, but the incorporation of Gly-IS was hindered by the propensity for Lewis acids to catalyze a ring-opening reaction driven by aromatization to a chiral furan analog. This reaction was discovered to be significantly sequestered through the use of metal-free photoinitiated cationic copolymerization methods that are void of Lewis acid reagents, yielding a much higher incorporation of Gly-IS (up to 42 mol%) into the copolymer. The rigidity and chirality of the Gly-IS repeating unit was found to increase the glass transition temperature ( T g ) up to 25 °C with 33 mol% incorporation at modest molar mass (10.4 kg mol −1 ) while all copolymers displayed thermal stability up to 320 °C under inert atmosphere. Due to its chiral structure, specific optical rotation [α] of the copolymer also increased with incorporation of Gly-IS. Therefore, Gly-IS presents opportunity as a sustainable and value-added comonomer to modulate the properties of common poly(vinyl ether) systems.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1659661
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10152790
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Polymer Chemistry
- Volume:
- 10
- Issue:
- 25
- ISSN:
- 1759-9954
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 3514 to 3524
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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n NR2copolymerizations with activities up to 3400 Kg copolymer mol−1‐Zr h‐1 atm‐1, and with comonomer enchainment up to 5.5 mol % in the absence of masking reagents. Group 4 catalyst‐amino‐olefin structure–activity‐selectivity relationships reflect the preference of olefin activation over free amine coordination, which is supported by mechanistic experiments and DFT analysis. These results illuminate poorly understood facets of d0metal‐catalyzed polar olefin monomer copolymerization processes. -
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Abstract In principal, the direct copolymerization of ethylene with polar comonomers should be the most efficient means to introduce functional groups into conventional polyolefins but remains a formidable challenge. Despite the tremendous advances in group 4‐centered catalysis for olefin polymerization, successful examples of ethylene + polar monomer copolymerization are rare, especially without Lewis acidic masking reagents. Here we report that certain group 4 catalysts are very effective for ethylene + CH2=CH(CH2)
n NR2copolymerizations with activities up to 3400 Kg copolymer mol−1‐Zr h‐1 atm‐1, and with comonomer enchainment up to 5.5 mol % in the absence of masking reagents. Group 4 catalyst‐amino‐olefin structure–activity‐selectivity relationships reflect the preference of olefin activation over free amine coordination, which is supported by mechanistic experiments and DFT analysis. These results illuminate poorly understood facets of d0metal‐catalyzed polar olefin monomer copolymerization processes.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1039/C9PY00590K
