The team from CAS and Peking University observed that oxime-carbamate structures were reversible at about 100 °C through oxime-enabled transcarbamoylation via a thermally dissociative mechanism. Using this observation, they produced polyurethane-like poly(oxime-urethanes) (POUs) by uncatalyzed polyaddition of multifunctional oximes and hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) at ambient temperature. Kinetics studies showed almost complete polymerization (∼99% conversion) in 3 h at 30 °C using dichloromethane (DCM) as solvent. The linear POUs produced had comparable molecular weights as polyurethanes produced by addition of catalyst.
China Bio news release, June 28, 2017