From Plant-Derived Monomers to Degradable Polymers via Precision Polymerization

Now that increasing number of techniques for polymerizations have been developed, one can easily access various polymers with well-defined primary structures by controlled/living polymerization systems. However, the environmental issues caused by polymeric material have also become a serious problem nowadays. To dissolve these problems, now it should be considered that the beneficial materials from birth to grave. Bio-based polymer materials from renewable resources have also recently been attracting much attention from the viewpoint of environmentally benign and sustainable chemistry, i.e., reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. The specific or complicated structures originating from natural products are also definitely beneficial for developing high performance or functional bio-based polymeric materials. In this study, the controlled/living polymerizations of a series of naturally-occurring and/or -derived vinyl monomer are presented for creating novel bio-based polymers. We also tried to synthesize novel degradable polymers that decomposes upon a specific stimulus by using the chemistry of controlled/living polymerization.