Highly Active, Productive, and Syndiospecific Yttrium Initiators for the Polymerization of Racemic β‐Butyrolactone

Abstract

Alternate tacticities: The ring-opening polymerization of rac-β-butyrolactone (rac-BBL) using a six-coordinate yttrium complex bearing a dianionic amine-bis(phenolate) ligand as initiator proceeds readily at room temperature to give the corresponding poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) with up to 94 % syndiotacticity and narrow molecular-weight distributions (see scheme). Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW under http://www.wiley-vch.de/contents/jc_2002/2006/z600058_s.pdf or from the author. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.