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    Undiscovered Potential: Ge Catalysts for Lactide Polymerization
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2020) Rittinghaus, Ruth D.; Tremmel, Jakub; Růžička, Ales; Conrads, Christian; Albrecht, Pascal; Hoffmann, Alexander; Ksiazkiewicz, Agnieszka N.; Pich, Andrij; Jambor, Roman; Herres-Pawlis, Sonja
    Polylactide (PLA) is a high potential bioplastic that can replace oil-based plastics in a number of applications. To date, in spite of its known toxicity, a tin catalyst is used on industrial scale which should be replaced by a benign catalyst in the long run. Germanium is known to be unharmful while having similar properties as tin. Only few germylene catalysts are known so far and none has shown the potential for industrial application. We herein present Ge complexes in combination with zinc and copper, which show amazingly high polymerization activities for lactide in bulk at 150 °C. By systematical variation of the complex structure, proven by single-crystal XRD and DFT calculations, structure–property relationships are found regarding the polymerization activity. Even in the presence of zinc and copper, germanium acts as the active site for polymerizing probably through the coordination–insertion mechanism to high molar mass polymers. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.
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    Heterolepic β‐Ketoiminate Zinc Phenoxide Complexes as Efficient Catalysts for the Ring Opening Polymerization of Lactide
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH, 2019) Ghosh, Swarup; Schäfer, Pascal M.; Dittrich, Dennis; Scheiper, Christoph; Steiniger, Phillip; Fink, Gerhard; Ksiazkiewicz, Agnieszka N.; Tjaberings, Alexander; Wölper, Christoph; Gröschel, André H.; Pich, Andrij; Herres‐Pawlis, Sonja; Schulz, Stephan
    Zinc phenoxide complexes L1ZnOAr 1–4 (L1=Me2NC2H4NC(Me)CHC(Me)O) and L2ZnOAr 5–8 (L2=Me2NC3H6NC(Me)CHC(Me)O) with donor-functionalized β-ketoiminate ligands (L1/2) and OAr substituents (Ar=Ph 1, 5; 2,6-Me2-C6H3 2, 6; 3,5-Me2-C6H3 3, 7; 4-Bu-C6H4 4, 8) with tuneable electronic and steric properties were synthesized and characterized. 1–8 adopt binuclear structures in the solid state except for 5, while they are monomeric in CDCl3 solution. 1–8 are active catalysts for the ring opening polymerization (ROP) of lactide (LA) in CH2Cl2 at ambient temperature and the catalytic activity is controlled by the electronic and steric properties of the OAr substituent, yielding polymers with high average molecular weight (Mn) and moderately controlled molecular weight distribution (MWDs). 1 and 5 showed a living polymerization character and kinetic studies on the ROP of L–LA with 1 and 5 proved first order dependencies on the monomer concentration. Homonuclear decoupled 1H-NMR analyses of polylactic acid (PLA) formed with rac-LA proved isotactic enrichment of the PLA microstructure. © 2019 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.