Magnesium acetate used as an effective catalyst for synthesizing aliphatic polycarbonates via melt transesterification process

Abstract

High-molecular-weight aliphatic polycarbonates(APCs) were synthesized through a two-step transesterification process under solvent-free conditions. Oligomers with equal numbers of hydroxyl and phenyl carbonate terminal groups could be easily controlled by using equimolar amounts of diphenyl carbonate(DPC) and aliphatic diols as feedstocks in the first step. In the second step, the high-molecular-weight APCs can be obtained by connecting ―OH with OC(O)OC6H5 end-group upon removing the generated phenol at reduced pressure. Mg(OAc)2 was found to be the best catalyst for this process among the screened catalysts, which gave the poly(1,4-butylene carbonate)(PBC) a weight-average molecular weight(Mw) of 148600 and a yield of 84.8% under its suitable reaction conditions. In addition, based on the results of X-ray diffraction(XRD), scanning electron microscopy(SEM) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR), a possible reaction mechanism over Mg(OAc)2 was proposed for APCs synthesis.