Investigation of cationic ring-opening polymerization of 2-oxazolines in the “green” solvent dihydrolevoglucosenone

• Solomiia Borova and
• Robert Luxenhofer

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 217–230, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.21

• polymerization process. Further work will be necessary to establish whether a living polymerization can be achieved by additional adjustments. Keywords: 2-alkyl-2-oxazolines; matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry; nuclear magnetic resonance; polymerization kinetics; Introduction

• hydrophilic polymers with a good safety and environmental profile has been a hot topic in recent years. Specifically, the search for more benign solvents for the polymerization of 2-alkyl-2-oxazolines has been ongoing for some time. Poly(2-oxazoline)s (POx) are a family of polymers investigated for a range of

• decided to investigate the polymerization of 2-alkyl-2-oxazolines with a longer side chain, as these have slightly lower reactivity. In particular, we investigated the polymerization of 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline (EtOx) and 2-butyl-2-oxazoline (BuOx). Incubation of dihydrolevoglucosenone with the initiator