Organic chemistry
Since the invention of the first synthetic polymer product, bakelite, synthetic polymer products have frequently been invented.
Catalyst transfer polymerization
The first reports of CTP came simultaneously from the labs of Yokozawa and McCullough in 2004, with the recognition that polythiophene can be synthesized with low dispersity and control over molecular weight when a grignard thiophene monomer was polymerized with Nickel(1,2-bis(diphenylphosphino)ethane)dichloride. This recognition sparked interest in the system, and its expansion to other monomers. Despite major advances in the field, relatively few polymers can be synthesized via CTP because the lack of a "universal CTP catalyst" means that every monomer must be paired with a different catalyst in order to obtain ideal living chain-growth behavior. This need to pair monomers to catalysts means most conjugated polymers are synthesized via palladium catalyzed step-growth polycondensation cross-coupling reactions.