Currently, a shift towards chemical products derived from renewable, biological feedstocks is observed more and more. However, substantial differences with traditional feedstocks, such as their “hyperfunctionalization,” ethical problems caused by competition with foods, and problems with a constant qualitative/quantitative availability of the natural products, occasionally complicate the large-scale market entry of renewable resources. In this context the vast family of terpenes is often not taken into consideration, although the terpenes have been known for hundreds of years as components of essential oils obtained from leaves, flowers, and fruits of many plants. The simple acyclic monoterpenes, particularly the industrially available myrcene, provide a classical chemistry similar to unsaturated hydrocarbons already known from oil and gas. Hence, this Review is aimed at reviving myrcene as a renewable compound suitable for sustainable chemistry in the area of fine chemicals. The versatility of the unsaturated C10-hydrocarbon myrcene, leading to products with several different areas of application, is pointed out.

Myrcene as a natural base chemical in sustainable chemistry: a critical review

ABA triblock polymers were prepared by living anionic polymerization of the pinene-derivable monomers α-methyl-p-methylstyrene and myrcene. The resulting thermoplastic elastomers displayed microphase separation at moderate molar mass, an upper service temperature about 70 °C higher than traditional petroleum-derived styrenic thermoplastic elastomers, competitive tensile strengths of up to 10 MPa, impressive ultimate elongations of up to 1300%, and remarkably low energy loss recovery attributes.

Sustainable thermoplastic elastomers from terpene-derived monomers

Hydrogenated monoterpenes as diesel fuel additives

Novel renewable resource-based UV-curable copolymers derived from myrcene and tung oil: Preparation, characterization and properties

Nitroxide-mediated polymerization (NMP) of β-myrcene (My) at 120 °C in bulk using unimolecular SG1-based succinimidyl ester-functionalized BlocBuilder (BB) alkoxyamine resulted in low dispersity (Đ = 1.1–1.4) poly(myrcene)s P(My)s with high SG1 chain-end fidelity. The polymerizations also showed the number-average molecular weights (Mn) increased almost linearly with conversion. SG1-terminated P(My) macroinitiators were cleanly chain-extended with styrene (S) and the S-rich P(My-b-S) diblock copolymers exhibited two distinct glass transition temperatures (Tgs), indicative of microphase separation. P(My-b-S) diblocks showed brittle stress–strain behavior, plausibly due to relatively low Mn. My/S mixtures with initial S molar feed compositions fS,0 = 0.10–0.94 were also statistically copolymerized (Mn = 8.2–19.8 kg mol–1, Đ ≤ 1.37, and monomodal distributions). Copolymer reactivity ratios were rS = 0.25 ± 0.04/0.34 ± 0.19 and rMy = 1.88 ± 0.12/2.19 ± 0.07 using Fineman–Ross and Kelen–Tudos methods. The stat...

L.C. Cocco

Papers

Synthesis of myrcene by pyrolysis of β-pinene: Analysis of decomposition reactions