Abstract
The development of various living/controlled polymerization techniques has allowed the synthesis of a large variety of well‐defined (co)polymers with varied polymer length, composition, and architecture, for example. Screening this large possible parameter space for a polymer with certain properties can be a very demanding process. Therefore, we aim to rapidly synthesize and systematically screen libraries of copolymers to determine structure‐property relationships that might allow the future design of novel (co)polymers with predictable properties. The cationic ring‐opening polymerization of 2‐oxazolines has been adapted for the synthesis of libraries of well‐defined (co)polymers. In this contribution, the optimization of the polymerization procedure using both high‐throughput experimentation and microwave irradiation is discussed. Subsequently, the microwave‐assisted synthesis of well‐defined libraries of (co)poly(2‐oxazoline)s and the determination of structure‐property relationships for these polymers is described. Moreover, the polymerization of a soy‐based 2‐oxazoline monomer will be illustrated as a ‘green’ approach to replace current oil‐based feedstock by renewable resources.
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