Pathways to Biorenewable Circularity in Crosslinked Cycloolefin Resins

Here, we show how to redesign cycloolefin resins for biorenewable circularity by addressing how bio-derived polar functionality influences ring strain, ring–chain equilibria, and likelihood for catalyst poisoning. These bio-based cycloolefin resins (bioCOR) are thermally and photochemically polymerizable, resulting in high-modulus thermosets with excellent thermal stability. Most notably, we found that the efficacy of thermoset deconstruction to the original crosslinker depended strongly on the ring-closing depolymerization catalyst.