Abstract
Ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of l-lactide catalyzed by 1,5,7-triazabicyclo[4.4.0]dec-5-ene (TBD) was efficiently screened via a programmable high-throughput robotic flow platform with very high accuracy (absolute error <5%). With a very significant amount of data being generated, a rate law describing living ROP initiated by TBD that includes a first-order dependency in l-lactide, a first-order dependency in TBD and a half-order dependency in the initiator 4-methylbenzyl alcohol is developed. Additionally, a negative observed reaction rate (k (obs)) was determined with increasing the initial monomer concentration, initiator or catalyst, or, surprisingly, decreasing the reaction temperature, giving rise to negative activation energies within the chemical space studied.