Polymerization of Bio-Derived Conjugated Dienes with Rare-Earth-Metal Complexes

The reliance of both our life and industry on fossil resource and the alarming accumulation of polymeric materials in the environment have presented huge challenges to sustainable society. Nowadays, utilization of renewable monomers as building blocks for polymeric materials has emerged as a hot topic and increasingly gained attention from chemists. As a class of biomass with abundance and low cost, terpenes are typical hydrocarbon-rich natural compounds, and some of them, such as myrcene and farnesene, are inherently suitable for coordination polymerization. In this review, we focus on the rare-earth metal catalyzed highly regio- and stereoselective polymerization of bio-based conjugated dienes, especially the ones from terpene-derived compounds with or without modifications. This review also discusses the future direction on the modification of these bio-based conjugated dienes.