Anionic Ring-Opening Copolymerization of L-Lactide with a Five-Membered Cyclic Carbonate Having a Glucopyranoside Structure

The anionic ring-opening copolymerization of L-lactide (LL) with a five-membered cyclic carbonate having the glucopyranoside structure, methyl 4,6-O-benzilidene-2,3-O-carbonyl-α-D-glucopyranoside (MBCG), was carried out using potassium tert-butoxide (t-BuOK) as the initiator and tetrahydrofuran (THF) as the solvent at 30°C for 12h. The mole fractions of LL in the copolymer (fLL ) of all copolymers were nearly equal to the corresponding mole fraction of LL in the feed (FLL ). Deprotection of the copolymer was performed using trifluoroacetic acid in dichloromethane. 1 H NMR spectra of the resulting product indicated that deprotection was completely achieved due to the absence of the aromatic proton signals.