Recent advances in CO2/epoxide copolymerization—New strategies and cooperative mechanisms

The catalytic copolymerization of CO2 with epoxides has been known for over 40 years. Even though many heterogeneous and homogeneous catalyst systems have been developed, catalyst activity and selectivity still remain too low for large scale industrial application.Recent investigations have identified new copolymerization pathways with strong evidence for cooperative (bifunctional) mechanisms. At high dilutions, traditional discrete mononuclear single-site catalyst systems generally show a loss in activity. This effect can be overcome with the help of recently developed dinuclear and binary linked systems that involve cooperative mechanisms and thus permit high catalyst efficiency.This review gives an overview on the most recent advances in CO2/epoxide copolymerization, new mechanistic studies and strategies for future catalyst developments.