Poly(2-oxazoline)s: Alive and kicking

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.