Polar Thermoplastics with Tunable Physical Properties Enabled by the Stereoselective Copolymerization of Vinyl Ethers.

A series of isotactic, semicrystalline vinyl ether copolymers (up to 94% diads) were synthesized using a chiral BINOL-based phosphoric acid in combination with a titanium Lewis acid. This stereoselective cationic polymerization enabled the systematic tuning of both glass transition () and melting temperature () in copolymers derived from alkyl vinyl ethers (i.e.