There is growing interest in exploring the prospects of substituting petroleum-based acrylic monomers with renewable (naturally occurring or biomass-derived) a-methylene-?-(methyl)butyrolactones for the production of specialty chemicals and sustainable polymers. This presentation will describe rapid and living as well as, in some cases, highly stereoselective polymerizations of such renewable monomers mediated by metal (main-group, transition-metal, and lanthanide)-based and organic catalysts. The resulting well-defined polymers exhibit controlled medium to high molecular weights, high to very high glass-transition temperatures, and atactic to highly tactic stereo-microstructures, thereby showing some great potentials for these sustainable polymers to displace petroleum-based commodity or specialty acylic plastics.

High-performance acrylic bioplastics from renewable α-methylene-γ-(methyl)butyrolactones

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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