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Enolic Schiff Base Zinc Amide Complexes: Highly Active Catalysts for Ring-Opening Polymerization of Lactide and ε-Caprolactone

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Abstract

A series of zinc silylamido complexes based upon NNO tridentate enolic Schiff base framework have been synthesized and characterized. These complexes were tested for the ring opening polymerization of lactide and ε-caprolactone, exhibiting notably high activity at ambient temperature. The influence of imine bridge length and substituents of diketone over the course of polymerization was investigated in details. Remarkably, 4a was confirmed to be a rare example of exceedingly active and robust zinc catalysts, achieving major transformation of lactide under extremely low loading (0.025 mol%) within 18 min. The influence of various monomers as well as the polymerization mechanism have also been discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21574124, 51503203 and 51233004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, China

    Chen-Yang Hu, Ran-Long Duan, Zhi-Qiang Sun, Xuan Pang, Xian-Hong Wang & Xue-Si Chen

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Chen-Yang Hu

  3. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, 130025, China

    Jing-Wei Yang

  4. VIP Department, Stomatological Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China

    Shu-Jun Dong

Authors
  1. Chen-Yang Hu
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  2. Ran-Long Duan
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  3. Jing-Wei Yang
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  5. Zhi-Qiang Sun
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  6. Xuan Pang
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  7. Xian-Hong Wang
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  8. Xue-Si Chen
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Correspondence to Xuan Pang or Xue-Si Chen.

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10118_2018_2129_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Enolic Schiff Base Zinc Amide Complexes: Highly Active Catalysts for Ring-Opening Polymerization of Lactide and ε-Caprolactone

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Hu, CY., Duan, RL., Yang, JW. et al. Enolic Schiff Base Zinc Amide Complexes: Highly Active Catalysts for Ring-Opening Polymerization of Lactide and ε-Caprolactone. Chin J Polym Sci 36, 1123–1128 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-018-2129-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-018-2129-4

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