Microwave-assisted polymerizations: Recent status and future perspectives

Microwave heating is frequently used in the synthesis of polymers owing to the precise temperature and pressure control when using monomodal microwave synthesizer. The ever since growing interest in this sort of heating source is expressed by a near-exponential increasing number of publications in this research field every year. This Perspective encompasses the progress of microwave-assisted polymerizations in the past four years with a special focus on controlled and living polymerizations. Furthermore, polymer syntheses under microwave irradiation in ionic liquids as well as the upscaling of microwave-assisted polymerizations are discussed with regard to an energy-saving green process and a potential expansion to industrial applications, respectively.