Quasiliving Cationic Polymerization of Anethole: Accessing High-Performance Plastic from the Biomass-Derived Monomer

Quasiliving cationic polymerization of the naturally occurring β-methylstyrene derivative, anethole, is reported for the first time. The effect of solvent polarity, initiator nature as well as Lewis acid, proton trap, and initiator concentrations on the cationic polymerization of anethole in the presence of SnCl4 as a coinitiator was studied in detail. It was shown that SnCl4-coinitiated cationic polymerization of anethole proceeds in a...