Recent Trends in Catalytic Polymerizations

Abstract

Polymers have become one of the largest and most important materials we use in daily life. Their popularity has stemmed from their wide range of material properties combined with their low cost of production. Both of these attractive traits have in part been enabled by the development of catalytic polymerizations, which provide both high levels of control while also delivering high levels of productivity. In this Perspective, we highlight recent trends and achievements made in the growing field of catalytic polymerizations.

Comparative Experimental and Theoretical Study of Mg, Al and Zn Aryloxy Complexes in Copolymerization of Cyclic Esters: The Role of the Metal Coordination in Formation of Random Copolymers

“…Catalytic ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of cyclic esters is the basis for the efficient synthetic approach to actual biodegradable and biocompatible materials [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Both organocatalysts [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ] and coordination catalysts [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ] have been efficiently used in ROP.…”

Ethylene Polymerization‐Induced Self‐Assembly (PISA) of Poly(ethylene oxide)‐block‐polyethylene Copolymers via RAFT

“…Ethylene is the simplest and the cheapest vinyl monomer on the market. As one of the most produced and most important synthetic polymer materials, polyethylene (PE) is obtained industrially by coordination-insertion catalytic polymerization [1][2][3][4] or by free radical polymerization (FRP) of ethylene. [5] Apart from the economic advantages of using ethylene, PE owes its industrial success to its outstanding mechanical and thermal properties.…”

Versatile catalytic strategy for polar-functionalized, cross-linkable, self-healing, and photo-responsive polyolefins

“…However, this advantageous attribute becomes a limitation when considering other important applications requiring adhesion, toughness, surface activity, compatibility with other materials, dyeability, barrier properties, electrical conductivity for static electricity suppression, and favorable rheological properties [1][2][3][4]. While post-polymerization functionalization has been used in the past to enhance polyolefin performance [1], such modifications typically require harsh conditions, lack selectivity, and may induce side reactions such as chain scission and/or cross-linking [3]. Thus, introducing polar functional groups into polyolefins during the initial polymerization process has become an atom-economical ''holy grail" and a central focus of olefin polymerization research today.…”

“…In creating polar polyolefin materials, industrially successful early transition metal catalysis has only achieved limited success, mainly due to high catalyst oxophilicity/Lewis acidity and typical polar comonomer Lewis basicity [5][6][7]. In contrast, late transition metal (Ni, Pd) catalysts exhibit far greater polar comonomer tolerance [1,2,8], which enables copolymerizations with a variety of polar comonomers. However, due to the relatively low polymerization activity and low product molecular weight, the real-world applications potential remains a challenge.…”

“…While developing efficient catalytic systems at a low cost is a significant challenge, another important question concerns which polar polyolefins might deliver desirable performance to satisfy market/customer needs. There are only few relevant studies [9] on the wide range of polar polyolefins available via Ni/Pd catalysis [1,2,8]. Thus, performance studies of these newly developed polar polyolefins are at the initial stage and limited.…”