Bifunctional thiourea-based organocatalyst promoted kinetic resolution polymerization of racemic lactide to isotactic polylactide.

Here, we prepared a series of thiourea-based organocatalysts 1-7 by combining two stereogenic elements: binaphthyl-amine and cyclohexyl diamine moieties. Catalyst (,)-1 facilitated a stereoselective polymerization of -LA to afford iso-enriched PDLA with of 0.96 while its enantiomer (,)-1 produced PLLA with of 0.96. These iso-enriched PLA contributed to forming a stereocomplexed PLA with a significantly increased of 196 °C.