The preparation of cyclic macromolecules has always represented a challenging task for polymer science, mainly because of difficulties in connecting chain extremities together. Initiated by the pioneering studies of Jacobson and Stockmayer, preparative pathways to cyclic polymers have been considerably improved within the last two decades thanks to the advent of both controlled polymerizations and efficient coupling reactions in organic chemistry. This Review aims to provide a critical up-to-date overview and illustrate the considerable efforts that have been made in the past few years to improve the availability of macrocycles for industrial and academic investigations through the use of the ring-closure approach. Particular attention is paid to methods for the preparation of monocycles over more complex architectures, since the latter are usually derived from the former.

International audienceA tandem mass spectrometry-based method is developed to determine the degree of purity achieved in the cyclization of a linear poly(L-lactide) prepared by copper-catalyzed alkyne-azide cycloaddition. When proton nuclear magnetic resonance, size-exclusion chromatography, and single-stage mass spectrometry are unable to demonstrate the presence of a residual linear polymer, the proposed ESI-tandem mass spectrometry methodology allows detection of starting material traces (<5%) based on radically different collision-induced dissociation (CID) behaviours. The technique is believed to be readily adaptable to numerous isomeric pairs of macromolecules presenting different CID characteristics

In this paper, ring closure click chemistry methods have been used to produce cyclic c-PLLA and c-PDLA of a number average molecular weight close to 10 kg/mol. The effects of stereochemistry of the polymer chains and their topology on their structure, nucleation and crystallization were studied in detail employing Wide Angle X-ray Scattering (WAXS), Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS), Polarized Light Optical Microscopy (PLOM) and standard and advanced Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The crystal structures of linear and cyclic PLAs are identical to each other and no differences in superstructural morphology could be detected. Cyclic PLA chains are able to nucleate much faster and to produce a higher number of nuclei in comparison to linear analogues, either upon cooling from the melt or upon heating from the glassy state. In the samples prepared in this work, a small fraction of linear or higher molecular weight cycles was detected (according to SEC analyses). The presence of such "impurities" retards spherulitic growth rates of c-PLAs making them nearly the same as those of l-PLAs. On the other hand, the overall crystallization rate determined by DSC was much larger for c-PLAs, as a consequence of the enhanced nucleation that occurs in cyclic chains. The equilibrium melting temperatures of cyclic chains were determined and found to be 5 ºC higher in comparison with values for l-PLAs. This result is a consequence of the lower entropy of cyclic chains in the melt. Self-nucleation studies demonstrated that c-PLAs have a shorter crystalline memory than linear analogues, as a result of their lower entanglement density. Successive selfnucleation and annealing (SSA) experiments reveal the remarkable ability of cyclic molecules to thicken, even to the point of crystallization with extended collapsed ring conformations. In general terms, stereochemistry had less influence on the results obtained in comparison with the dominating effect of chain topology.

One of the main issues when using traveling wave ion mobility spectrometry (TWIMS) for the determination of collisional cross-section (CCS) concerns the need for a robust calibration procedure built from referent ions of known CCS. Here, we implement synthetic polymer ions as CCS calibrants in positive ion mode. Based on their intrinsic polydispersities, polymers offer in a single sample the opportunity to generate, upon electrospray ionization, numerous ions covering a broad mass range and a large CCS window for different charge states at a time. In addition, the key advantage of polymer ions as CCS calibrants lies in the robustness of their gas-phase structure with respect to the instrumental conditions, making them less prone to collisional-induced unfolding (CIU) than protein ions. In this paper, we present a CCS calibration procedure using sodium cationized polylactide and polyethylene glycol, PLA and PEG, as calibrants with reference CCS determined on a home-made drift tube. Our calibration procedure is further validated by testing the polymer calibration to determine CCS of numerous different ions for which CCS are reported in the literature. Graphical Abstract ᅟ.

In the field of polymer characterization, the use of ion mobility mass spectrometry (IMMS) remains mainly devoted to the temporal separation of cationized oligomers according to their charge states, molecular masses and macromolecular architectures in order to probe the presence of different structures. When analyzing multiply charged polymer ions by IMMS, the most striking feature is the observation of breaking points in the evolution of the average collision cross sections with the number of monomer units. Those breaking points are associated to the folding of the polymer chain around the cationizing agents. Here, we scrutinize the shape of the arrival time distribution (ATD) of polylactide ions and associate the broadening as well as the loss of symmetry of the ATD signals to the coexistence of different populations of ions attributed to the transition from opened to folded stable structures. The observation of distinct distributions reveals the absence of folded/extended structure interconversion on the ion mobility time scale (1-10 ms) and then on the lifetime of ions within the mass spectrometer at room temperature. In order to obtain information on the possible interconversion between the different observed populations upon ion activation, we performed IM-IM-MS experiments (tandem ion mobility measurements). To do so, mobility-selected ions were activated by collisions before a second mobility measurement. Interestingly, the conversion by collisional activation from a globular structure into a (partially) extended structure, i.e. the gas phase unfolding of the ions, was not observed in the energetic regime available with the used experimental setup. The absence of folded/extended interconversion, even upon collisional activation, points to the fact that the polylactide ions are 'frozen' in their specific 3D structure during the desolvation/ionization electrospray processes. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The light induced, catalyst-free ambient temperature preparation of macrocyclic aliphatic polyesters is pioneered. Based on the photo-induced Diels-Alder reaction of orthoquinodimethane and acrylate moieties, cyclic polyesters of high purity are readily synthesized. Considering the high tolerance to functional groups and the orthogonality of the ligation, the reported protocol can be easily transferred to a large range of polymers, complex topologies (tadpole, sun-shaped, jellyfish, etc.) and applications.

A 50 : 50 wt% mixture of L-lactide and trimethylene carbonate yields a eutectic at 21.3 C. This mixture was exploited to prepare poly(L-lactide) homopolymers at r.t. without addition of extra solvent. The intrinsic kinetic behavior of the DBU organocatalyst also allowed for the sequential polymerization of both comonomers, leading to well defined gradient copolymers.

The design of an imidazole-based salt by enzyme-mimicking allowed controlling the ring-opening polymerization of L- and D-LA monomers in bulk. Kinetic study supports a bifunctional activation process only slightly different from the one occurring in Nature.