Mononuclear Salen–Sodium Ion Pairs as Catalysts for Isoselective Polymerization of rac-Lactide

A series of mononuclear salen–sodium anions, as the first examples, were synthesized with tetra-alkyl ammonium as a counterpart cation. These complexes are efficient catalysts for the isoselective ring-opening polymerization of rac-lactide; the molecular weights of polymers are under control and molecular weight distributions are narrow when five equivalents of BnOH is used as an initiator. The best isoselectivity value of Pm = 0.82 was achieved at −70 °C. The experimental results together with a density functional theory calculation show that a ligand-assisted activated monomer mechanism is more reasonable than an activated monomer mechanism for this system.