Precipitation driven ADMET polymerization of jojoba oil for recyclable biorenewable polymers

Abstract

Unsaturated natural oils, waxes, and their associated fatty acids represent promising starting materials for sustainable polymer synthesis due to their abundance and propensity to participate in metathesis reactions. In this work, the polycondensation polymerization of jojoba oil to produce high molecular weight polymers and valuable 9-octadecene as the condensate is efficiently achieved through an atom-efficient catalytic process under mild conditions. The fundamental breakthrough for the complete conversion of jojoba oil to the corresponding polyester was accomplished by separating the polymer from 9-octadecene via an iterative precipitation technique. The resulting high molecular weight polyesters could be readily deconstructed under basic hydrolytic conditions and repolymerized by acid-catalyzed esterification of the obtained degradation products. These findings underscore the potential of jojoba-derived polyesters for closed-loop recycling, where polymers can be chemically broken down and reassembled into new materials. The technology developed in this study can be further expanded to produce a wide range of useful bio-renewable polymers from other natural oils and waxes in an environmentally accountable manner.