The replacement of current petroleum-based plastics with sustainable alternatives is a crucial but formidable challenge for the modern society. Catalysis presents an enabling tool to facilitate the development of sustainable polymers. This review provides a system-level analysis of sustainable polymers and outlines key criteria with respect to the feedstocks the polymers are derived from, the manner in which the polymers are generated, and the end-of-use options. Specifically, we define sustainable polymers as a class of materials that are derived from renewable feedstocks and exhibit closed-loop life cycles. Among potential candidates, aliphatic polyesters and polycarbonates are promising materials due to their renewable resources and excellent biodegradability. The development of renewable monomers, the versatile synthetic routes to convert these monomers to polyesters and polycarbonate, and the different end-of-use options for these polymers are critically reviewed, with a focus on recent advances in catalytic transformations that lower the technological barriers for developing more sustainable replacements for petroleum-based plastics.

Nitrogen-based thermoset polymers have many industrial applications (for example, in composites), but are difficult to recycle or rework. We report a simple one-pot, low-temperature polycondensation between paraformaldehyde and 4,4'-oxydianiline (ODA) that forms hemiaminal dynamic covalent networks (HDCNs), which can further cyclize at high temperatures, producing poly(hexahydrotriazine)s (PHTs). Both materials are strong thermosetting polymers, and the PHTs exhibited very high Young's moduli (up to ~14.0 gigapascals and up to 20 gigapascals when reinforced with surface-treated carbon nanotubes), excellent solvent resistance, and resistance to environmental stress cracking. However, both HDCNs and PHTs could be digested at low pH (<2) to recover the bisaniline monomers. By simply using different diamine monomers, the HDCN- and PHT-forming reactions afford extremely versatile materials platforms. For example, when poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) diamine monomers were used to form HDCNs, elastic organogels formed that exhibited self-healing properties.

Ring-opening polymerization of lactones is a versatile approach to generate well-defined functional polyesters. Typical ring-opening catalysts are subject to a trade-off between rate and selectivity. Here we describe an effective catalytic system combining alkoxides with thioureas that catalyses rapid and selective ring-opening polymerizations. Deprotonation of thioureas by sodium, potassium or imidazolium alkoxides generates a hydrogen-bonded alcohol adduct of the thiourea anion (thioimidate). The ring-opening polymerization of L-lactide mediated by these alcohol-bonded thioimidates yields highly isotactic polylactide with fast kinetics and living polymerization behaviour, as evidenced by narrow molecular weight distributions (M/M < 1.1), chain extension experiments and minimal transesterifications. Computational studies indicate a bifunctional catalytic mechanism whereby the thioimidate activates the carbonyl of the monomer and the alcohol initiator/chain end to effect the selective ring-opening of lactones and carbonates. The high selectivity of the catalyst towards monomer propagation over transesterification is attributed to a selective activation of monomer over polymer chains.

Computational investigations of ligand-directed selectivities in Ullmann-type coupling reactions of methanol and methylamine with iodobenzene by β-diketone-and 1,10-phenanthroline-ligated Cu(I) complexes are reported. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations with several functionals were performed on both the nucleophile formation and aryl halide activation steps of these reactions. The origin of ligand-directed selectivities in N-vs. O-arylation reactions as described in a previous publication (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2007, 129, 3490-3491) were studied and explained. The selectivities observed experimentally are not derived from initial Cu(I)-nucleophile formation, but from the subsequent steps involving aryl halide activation. The arylation may occur via single-electron transfer (SET) or iodine atom transfer (IAT), depending on the electrondonating ability of the ligand and nucleophile. Mechanisms involving either oxidative addition/ reductive elimination or sigma-bond metathesis are disfavored. SET mechanisms are favored in reactions promoted by the β-diketone ligand; N-arylation is predicted to be favored in these cases, in agreement with experimental results. The phenanthroline ligand promotes O-arylation reactions via IAT mechanisms in preference to N-arylation reactions, which occur via SET mechanisms; this result is also in agreement with experimental results.

The transition states and activation barriers of the 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions of azides with cycloalkynes and cycloalkenes were explored using B3LYP density functional theory (DFT) and spin component scaled SCS-MP2 methods. A survey of benzyl azide cycloadditions to substituted cyclooctynes (OMe, Cl, F, CN) showed that fluorine substitution has the most dramatic effect on reactivity. Azide cycloadditions to 3-substituted cyclooctynes prefer 1,5-addition regiochemistry in the gas phase, but CPCM solvation abolishes the regioselectivity preference, in accord with experiments in solution. The activation energies for phenyl azide addition to cycloalkynes decrease considerably as the ring size is decreased (cyclononyne DeltaG(double dagger) = 29.2 kcal/mol, cyclohexyne DeltaG(double dagger) = 14.1 kcal/mol). The origin of this trend is explained by the distortion/interaction model. Cycloalkynes are predicted to be significantly more reactive dipolarophiles than cycloalkenes. The activation barriers for the cycloadditions of phenyl azide and picryl azide (2,4,6-trinitrophenyl azide) to five- through nine-membered cycloalkenes were also studied and compared to experiment. Picryl azide has considerably lower activation barriers than phenyl azide. Dissection of the transition state energies into distortion and interaction energies revealed that "strain-promoted" cycloalkyne and cycloalkene cycloaddition transition states must still pay an energetic penalty to achieve their transition state geometries, and the differences in reactivity are more closely related to differences in distortion energies than the amount of strain released in the product. Trans-cycloalkene dipolarophiles have much lower barriers than cis-cycloalkenes.