Chapter 17: Click Chemistry in Designing Vitrimers: A New Class of Potential Sustainable Materials

Plastic pollution has become a major problem today. The increasing focus of governments and institutions on the prevalent plastic pollution issues, and development of sustainable materials to counter the existing problem, has led to researchers pushing the existing boundaries of knowledge on sustainable materials and processes. In recent years, researchers have proposed a novel class of materials known as “vitrimers” as a viable solution to tackle plastic pollution. Vitrimers carry the distinct advantage of thermal processability which is absent in most sustainable materials. The field of vitrimer synthesis and applications has gained momentum in the last few years, on the heels of increasing regulations on sustainable materials. Among the various chemistries used for vitrimer synthesis “click” chemistry stands out as very efficient method due to its facile nature and high yield. Since its discovery in the last decade, click chemistry has been applied to various fields of chemical synthesis. In this chapter, we shed light on the various ways in which click chemistry has been utilized for the development of sustainable materials, especially in designing different types of vitrimers.