Division/Committee: [PMSE] Division of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering

Vinyl polymers have many advantages that make polymers valuables for a wide range of applications but their stability under thermal, chemical, and mechanical stress leads to environmental pollution on a macro-scale and via long-lasting microscopic plastic fragments (microplastics). Transforming already known materials to make them biodegradable/recyclable is a very promising approach and this could be done via the introduction of labile bonds onto the polymer backbone. A simple and useful method of incorporating weak bonds randomly onto the C?C polymer backbone is by radical copolymerization of vinyl monomers with cyclic monomers via radical ring-opening polymerization (rROP). This method combines both the advantages of ring-opening polymerization and radical polymerization, that is the production of polymers having heteroatoms and/or functional groups in the main chain together with the robustness, the ease of use and the mild polymerization conditions of a radical process. This symposium will focus on the recent developments in radical ring-opening polymerization and will focus on degradation/recycling of these new materials.

Catherine Lefay

Aix-Marseille Universite

Appearances