Tailoring Thermo-Mechanical Properties of Cationically UV-Cured Systems by a Rational Design of Vinyl Ether Ester Oligomers using Enzyme Catalysis

There is a demand for new sustainable polymeric materials. Vinyl ethers are, in this context, attractive oligomers since they polymerize fast, are non-toxic, and can be polymerized under ambient conditions. The availability of vinyl ether oligomers is, however, currently limited due to difficulties in synthesizing them without using tedious synthesis routes. This work presents the synthesis of a series of vinyl ether ester oligomers using enzyme catalysis under solvent-free conditions and the subsequent photoinduced cationic polymerization to form polymer thermosets with T(g)s ranging from -10 to 100 degrees C. The whole process is very efficient as the synthesis takes less than 1 h with no need for purification and the crosslinking is complete within 2 min.