Renewable polycarbonates and polyesters from 1,4-cyclohexadiene

By M. Winkler, C. Romain, M. Meier, Charlotte K. Williams. 2015

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Epoxides derived from 1,4-cyclohexadiene (CHD), the latter produced from renewable resources via self-metathesis of plant oil derivatives, are applied as key substrates in ring-opening copolymerizations to produce aliphatic polycarbonates and polyesters. Renewable, unsaturated polycarbonates are prepared by the ring-opening copolymerization of epoxide/CO2; these are catalysed by di-zinc/magnesium complexes previously reported by Williams et al. or by using chromium(III) or cobalt(III) salen complexes. Renewable, unsaturated polyesters, with glass transition temperatures up to 128 °C, were obtained by the ring-opening copolymerization of epoxide/phthalic anhydride. The relative rates of these copolymerizations were monitored using in situ attenuated total reflectance infra-red (ATR-IR) spectroscopy. The polymers were fully characterized using spectroscopy (nuclear magnetic resonance, infra-red), mass spectrometry (matrix assisted laser desorption ionization), and by thermal methods (differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis).

Subfields: Biomaterials, Biomedical Engineering, Process Chemistry and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f51d2a4b8a7c16fae9f56fcf8520888c2ecbfa20