Turnaround in use of enol ether opens the door to degradable plastics

While ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) is a robust method to construct polymers, monomer systems for degradable ROMP polymers are limited. Existing systems suffer from lengthy synthesis and/or uncontrolled polymerization. Xia and coworkers demonstrated the synthesis of degradable ROMP copolymers from the commercially available monomers in a controlled manner. While ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) is a robust method to construct polymers, monomer systems for degradable ROMP polymers are limited. Existing systems suffer from lengthy synthesis and/or uncontrolled polymerization. Xia and coworkers demonstrated the synthesis of degradable ROMP copolymers from the commercially available monomers in a controlled manner.