CD-Laboratory for Organo-Catalysis in Polymerization

The present project aims at advancing the widely neglected field of oxa-Michael addition polymerization with the means of organo-catalysis. The goal is to disclose alcohol based alternatives to the broadly used thiol-Michael addition polymerization. Thiols feature important downsides, which can be removed by using alcohols. Thiols are generally toxic and exhibit bad odor. The use of thiols suffers from their pronounced tendency to undergo oxidative disulfide formation and the oxidative instability of the formed thioether groups. Furthermore, thiols are less readily available and generally more expensive than the much greener alcohols. However, alcohols are distinctly less reactive than thiols. Accordingly, for the advancement of oxa-Michael addition polymerization the most important target is to disclose conditions for efficiently converting especially poor Michael acceptors with alcohols. This challenge will be met by finding and tailoring proper nucleophiles (bases) for the initiation reaction and/or activating the Michael acceptor with a co-catalyst. These strategies will further be deployed to the industrially very relevant curing of epoxy resins with the aim to accelerate the curing reaction at and below room temperature and at the same time gaining control over the pot life of the formulation.