Sustainable Synthesis of Polyesters via Ring-Opening Polymerization

This thesis presents the development of an automated flow chemistry platform for synthesizing polyesters with precisely controlled molecular weights and distributions. It integrates inline FT-IR analysis, machine automation, and flow chemistry to enable high-throughput, multidimensional screening of polymerization reactions. A CTR-based model was developed to optimize inline monitoring, achieving high accuracy (<4.2% error). The platform was validated on RAFT, ROMP, and ROP reactions, demonstrating broad applicability and reproducibility. Detailed kinetic data enabled mechanistic insights and guided one-shot polyester synthesis. Optimization efforts improved accuracy, showing strong agreement with target values and highlighting the platform’s potential for precise, scalable polymer synthesis.