Construction of polyphosphoesters with the main chain of rigid backbones and stereostructures via organocatalyzed ring-opening polymerization

A highly stereoregular polyphosphoester with a rigid cyclohexylene structure in the main chain was constructed via ring-opening polymerization (ROP) in the presence of an organic catalyst system. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis indicated that isotactic polyphosphoesters exhibit a higher glass transition temperature (T_g = 9.9 °C) compared with their atactic counterparts (−20.6 °C), which are much higher than that (−60 to −40 °C) of the previously reported phosphate polymers, making these polymers have great potential in materials science.