Advancing Sustainable Polymer Synthesis: Exploring Heterogenous Catalytic Flow Reactors and Support Materials

This thesis explores the synthesis and depolymerisation of poly(lactide) in both batch and flow reactors, where focus was placed on heterogeneous catalysts, investigating effect of support type on polymerisation success. The broad scope was to develop more biocompatible PLA catalysts, investigate structure-property relationships of heterogeneous support types, and investigate an industrially-relevant PLA recycling process.