Catalyst free PET and PEF polyesters using a new traceless oxalate chain extender

Abstract

Plastic material performance is strongly correlated to the polymer's molecular weight. Obtaining a sufficiently high molecular weight is therefore a key goal of polymerization processes. The most important polyester polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and the new polyethylene furanoate (PEF) require metal catalysts and time-consuming production processes to reach sufficiently high molecular weights. Metal catalysts, which are typically antimony or tin for polyesters, end up in the plastic products which may result in sustainability and ecological challenges. When the less reactive comonomer isosorbide is introduced to produce (partly) biobased materials with enhanced thermal properties, such as polyethylene-co-isosorbide furanoate (PEIF), reaching high enough molecular weight becomes even more challenging. This study presents an easily implementable approach to produce high molecular weight PET and PEF polyesters and their isosorbide copolyesters PEIT and PEIF by coupling lower molecular weight polymer chains by the reactive diguaiacyl oxalate (DGO) chain extender. DGO is so reactive, that the use of metal catalysts can be completely avoided and it helps avoiding an extra solid-state polymerization step. In addition, DGO distinguishes itself from typical chain extenders by its ability to be completely removed from the resulting polymer, thereby avoiding the inherent drawbacks associated with typical chain extenders.

Graphical abstract: Catalyst free PET and PEF polyesters using a new traceless oxalate chain extender

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 6 2024
Accepted
05 8 2024
First published
16 8 2024
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Green Chem., 2024, Advance Article

Catalyst free PET and PEF polyesters using a new traceless oxalate chain extender

K. van der Maas, D. H. Weinland, R. van Putten, B. Wang and G. M. Gruter, Green Chem., 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D4GC02791D

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