Synthesis of biodegradable copolymers with low-toxicity zirconium compounds. IV. Copolymerization of glycolide with trimethylene carbonate and 2,2-dimethyltrimethylene carbonate: Microstructure analysis of copolymer chains by high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

The results of the copolymerization of glycolide with cyclic trimethylene carbonate and 2,2-dimethyltrimethylene carbonate are described. The copolymerization was conducted in the presence of low-toxicity zirconium(IV) acetylacetonate as an initiator. With this kind of initiator, the composition of the comonomer units in the copolymer chains was assumed to be obtained with high efficiency. Despite significant differences in the comonomer reactivity, in copolymers containing comparable amounts of glycolidyl and carbonate sequences, highly randomized chain structures were observed. This effect resulted from strong intermolecular transesterification that proceeded during the studied copolymerization and caused glycolidyl microblock randomization. The assignment of the spectral NMR lines to appropriate comonomer sequences of polymeric chains was performed in the region of methylene protons of glycolidyl units in H-1 NMR spectra of the copolymers and in the carbonyl region of carbon spectra. The equations were formulated for a detailed characterization of the obtained copolymer chains, the average lengths of the blocks, and the transesterification and randomization coefficients. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.