(272f) Versatile Light-Mediated Synthesis of Degradable 1,2-Ditholane-Based Polymers

Bottlebrush polymers have a variety of potentially useful properties including a high entanglement molecular weight, low Young’s modulus, and rapid kinetics for self-assembly. However, the translation of bottlebrushes to real-world applications remains limited due to challenging synthetic pathways that rely on expensive reagents and complex, multi-step polymerizations. Additionally, there is a need to develop bottlebrush polymers that can be degraded or recycled. The annual production of polymers is approaching 500 Mt, and the majority of these polymers cannot be easily or economically recycled. Herein, we develop a new synthetic method that enables an inexpensive, versatile, and simple approach to synthesize degradable bottlebrush polymers under mild reaction conditions by using a-lipoic acid (LA) as a bottlebrush backbone. LA is an inexpensive, naturally occurring, and biocompatible small molecule. Due to reversibility of the disulfide bond in LA, resulting bottlebrush polymers could be depolymerized to macromonomers, which could be recycled to produce new bottlebrush polymers. This work enables the inexpensive and large-scale preparation of degradable bottlebrush polymers with variety of side-chain chemistries and will allow us and others to greatly advance the development of bottlebrush polymers.