Degradable polymer adhesives have received great attention in recent years

Biodegradable polymer materials have received a great deal of attention due to environmental and other issues associated with the use of petroleum products. Currently, biodegradable polymers are used in biomedicine, food packaging, and disposable items, but their limited properties limit their widespread use. Pressure-sensitive adhesives (PSA) represent a potential application (for example, tape, labels, stamps, and adhesive paper) that will further expand the range of applications for degradable polyesters. Traditional PSA materials are mostly composed of polyacrylate, rubber, polyurethane, and so on.

During the recycling process, these pressure-sensitive adhesives are broken up and the resulting large sticky material is effectively removed, but the slightly sticky material is still left behind causing what the recycling industry calls the “sticky” problem. These sticky substances can deposit on the equipment, resulting in a decrease in the quality of recovered materials and an increase in the cost of recovery.

One way to solve the “sticky matter” problem that remains in the recovery process of pressure-sensitive adhesives is to prepare degradable pressure-sensitive adhesives. Biodegradable pressure-sensitive adhesive can be degraded into small molecules under relatively mild degradation conditions or with the addition of green additives. At present, there is still little research on decomposable sensitive adhesives. The copolymers of methide and LA, methide and MeMBL, Pentadecyl Caprolactone, and LA have been reported in the literature. In addition to strong adhesion, these polymers contain ester bonds in their main chains, which can be broken by heating, thus achieving their degradability.

We found poly (1, 5 second -4-dioxane -2 – ketone (PDXO) is very similar to pressure-sensitive adhesive materials and literature reports of a polyether ester, the monomer 1, 5 second- 4-dioxane -2- ketone (DXO) implement commercialized long ago already, can use a mature method. Although the preparation method of DXO is relatively mature, the catalytic agents of ring-opening polymerization of DXO reported in most literature only revolve around stannous caprylate, aluminum isopropyl alcohol, organic strong base, etc.

The use of these catalysts is confronted with problems such as poor polymerization ability, high polymerization temperature, long polymerization time, uncontrollable molecular weight, and distribution. In recent years, the binary catalytic system has shown strong catalytic activity and control in the ring-opening polymerization of life, among which the Lewis acid and the base system have been widely used. It uniquely utilizes the two components of Lewis acid (LA) and Lewis base (LB) to cooperatively catalyze the polymerization of various monomers. Chain initiation, chain growth, chain termination, and chain transfer were significantly affected by balancing the acidity and basicity of LA and LB and their spatial interaction.