Alkali Metal Carboxylates: Simple and Versatile Initiators for Ring-Opening Alternating Copolymerization of Cyclic Anhydrides/Epoxides

In this contribution, we thoroughly investigated the ring-opening alternating copolymerization (ROAC) of cyclic anhydride and epoxide by using commercially available alkali metal carboxylates (AMCs) as the simple and green initiators. The idea of our work is based on the coordination effects of epoxide on an AMC and the formation of AMC–epoxide adducts, which will weaken the interaction between metal cation and its carboxylate counterion and...