Stereochemistry on demand unlocks the potential of polymers

Drawing inspiration from DNA synthesis, chemists at the Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaires (CNRS / Strasbourg University) have developed a polymerisation method that enables precise control over the number and spatial orientation of constituent monomers. For the first time, researchers have succeeded in creating so-called eutactic polymers, in which the orientation of each base unit is individually controlled. As the mechanical, chemical, and optical characteristics of materials are strongly dependent on stereochemistry, this discovery – published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society – paves the way for billions of new structures with adjustable properties. This means that optically active, self-assembled polymers, or polymers capable of encoding and storing information, can be designed. The precision of this method has been validated by mass spectrometry, chromatography, NMR, and circular dichroism.