作者:James C. A. Flanagan、Eun Joo Kang、Nathaniel I. Strong、Robert M. Waymouth
DOI:10.1021/acscatal.5b00930
日期:2015.9.4
A room-temperature dimerization of crotonates into 2-ethylidene-3-methylpentanedioates provides a sustainable route to difunctional monomers for step-growth polymerizations. We report two such dimerizations: (1) an organocatalytic dimerization using the N-heterocyclic carbene 1,3-diisopropyl-4,5-dimethylimidazol-2-ylidene ((IPr2Me2)-Pr-i) and (2) a rapid dimerization (under 15 s to full conversion) using potassium t-butoxide in THF. In addition to unsaturated diesters, the resulting dimers can be easily converted to other step-growth monomers; namely, their corresponding diacids and saturated diesters.