Development of Supramolecular Catalysts for Accelerated Ring-Opening Polymerization of Lactide

摘要

Polyesters have increasing signifigance in diverse fields such as drug delivery and microelectronics. A common method to synthesize polyesters in a controlled manner is to perform ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of a cyclic ester monomer such as lactide, the cyclized dimer of lactic acid While the most common catalysts for ROP are metal salts, problems can arise in specialized applications due to tenacious retention of the metal in the polymeric product. To avoid laborious post-polymerization metal removal, we have been developing fully organocatalytic methods for ROP, based predominantly on nucleophilic and/or basic catalysts such as 4- (dimethylamino)pyridine, trialkylphosphines, and N-heterocyclic carbenes.