5. Conclusion and outlook

Radical ring-opening polymerization (rROP) appears to be a promising way of meeting current and future environmental challenges, by offering a simple method for producing degradable materials. This synthesis method involves copolymerizing a cyclic monomer, mainly of the cyclic ketene acetal (CKA) or thionolactone type, with a conventional vinyl monomer to introduce cleavable bonds (of the ester or thioester type respectively) into the polymer chain backbone. A low level of labile functions is sufficient to make the latter degradable after use, while maintaining the thermal and mechanical properties of the materials during use.

While the rROP technique is now well recognized in the community as a promising solution to the problem of plastic pollution, the end-of-life of materials obtained by this method remains to be studied and improved. In the case of collectable...