Biobased High-Performance Aromatic–Aliphatic Polyesters with Complete Recyclability

Abstract

The development of high-performance recyclable polymers represents a circular plastics economy to address the urgent issues of plastic sustainability. Herein, we design a series of biobased seven-membered-ring esters containing aromatic and aliphatic moieties. Ring-opening polymerization studies showed that they readily polymerize with excellent activity (TOF up to 2.1 × 10⁵ h^-1) at room temperature and produce polymers with high molecular weight (<i>M</i>_n up to 438 kg/mol). The variety of functionalities allows us to investigate the substitution effect on polymerizability/recyclability of monomers and properties of polymers (such as <i>T</i>_gs from -1 to 79 °C). Remarkably, a stereocomplexed P(<b>M2</b>) exhibited significantly increased <i>T</i>_m and crystallization rate. More importantly, product P(<b>M</b>)s were capable of depolymerizing into their monomers in solution or bulk with high efficiency, thus establishing their circular life cycle.