Boosting the Reactivity of Bis-Lactones to Enable Step-Growth Polymerization at Room Temperature

The development of new sustainable polymeric materials endowed with improved performances but minimal environmental impact is a major concern, with polyesters as primary targets. Lactones are key monomers thanks to ring-opening polymerization, but their use in step-growth polymerization has remained scarce and challenging. Herein, we report a powerful bis(γ-lactone) (γSL) that was efficiently prepared on a gram scale from malonic acid by Pd-catalyzed cycloisomerization. The γ-exomethylene moieties and the spiro structure greatly enhance its reactivity toward ring-opening and enable step-growth polymerization under mild conditions. Using diols, dithiols, or diamines as comonomers, a variety of regioregular (AB) copolymers with diverse linkages and functional groups (from oxo-ester to β-thioether lactone and β-hydroxy-lactame) have been readily prepared. Reaction modeling and monitoring revealed the occurrence of an original trans-lactonization process following the first ring-opening of γSL. This peculiar reactivity opens the way to regioregular (ABAC) terpolymers, as illustrated by the successive step-growth polymerization of γSL with a diol and a diamine.