Telomerization of 1,3-butadiene with glycerol carbonate and subsequent ring-opening lactone co-polymerization

Glycerol carbonate, straightforwardly issued from glycerol, is functionalized by telomerization with 1,3-butadiene by means of a palladium catalyst, to selectively afford the linear octadienylglyceryl carbonate. Further hydrogenation of the double bonds gives the saturated functionalized product. The resulting glyceryl carbonate ethers are tentatively co-polymerized with lactones in the presence of a neodymium initiator. Copolymers with up to ca 4 mol % of inserted carbonate are received. The rather low amount of inserted co-monomer is found sufficient to modulate the thermal behavior of polycaprolactone. (C) 2015 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.