Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 7, 2025

Preparation of Monodomain Liquid Crystal Elastomers and Liquid Crystal Elastomer Nanocomposites
Published on: February 6, 2016
Salt additives as activity boosters: a simple strategy to access heterometallic cooperativity in lactide
Weronika Gruszka1, Jennifer A Garden1
1EaStCHEM School of Chemistry, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH9 3FJ, UK. j.garden@ed.ac.uk.
None:
Inorganic salt additives can activate carbonyl groups towards organic addition reactions. Here, we translate this concept to ring-opening polymerisation for the first time, generating heterometallic ProPhenol catalysts in situ, which show similar activity enhancements to pre-formed heterometallic complexes. Extremely high activities are observed, with K/Mg and K/Ca combinations converting >85 eq. lactide in 5 s at room temperature.
Related Concept Videos
Complexometric Titration: Ligands
Metal-Ligand Bonds
In these complexes, transition metals form coordinate covalent bonds, a kind of Lewis acid-base interaction in which both of the electrons in the bond are contributed by a donor (Lewis base) to an electron acceptor (Lewis acid). The Lewis acid in...
Ziegler–Natta Chain-Growth Polymerization: Overview
Cooperative Allosteric Transitions
EDTA: Auxiliary Complexing Reagents
Anionic Chain-Growth Polymerization: Overview

