Stereoregular Polymerization of Acyclic Terpenes

The growing environmental pollution and the expected depleting of fossil resources have sparked interest in recent years for polymers obtained from monomers originating from renewable sources. Furthermore, nature can provide a variety of building blocks with special structural features (e. g. side groups or stereo-elements) that cannot be obtained so easily via fossil-based pathways. In this context, terpenes are widespread natural compounds coming from non-food crops, present in a large variety of structures, and ready to use as monomers with or without further modifications. The present review aims to provide an overview of how chemists can stereospecifically polymerize terpenes, particularly the acyclic ones like myrcene, ocimene, and farnesene, using different metal catalyst systems in coordination-insertion polymerization. Attention is also paid to their copolymers, which have recently been disclosed, and to the possible applications of these bio-based materials in various industrial sectors such as in the field of elastomers. © 2021 The Authors. ChemPlusChem published by Wiley-VCH GmbH. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.