Utilisation of bio-derived platform molecules in polymer synthesis has advantages which are, broadly, twofold; to digress from crude oil dependence of the polymer industry and secondly to reduce the environmental impact of the polymer synthesis through the inherent functionality of the bio-derived platform molecules. Bulk polymerisation of bio-derived unsaturated di-acids has been employed to produce unsaturated polyester (UPEs) which have been analysed by GPC, TGA, DSC and NMR spectroscopy, advancing on the analysis previously reported. UPEs from the diesters of itaconic, succinic, and fumaric acids were successfully synthesised with various diols and polyols to afford resins of M_N 480–477,000 and T_g of −30.1 to −16.6 °C with solubilities differing based on starting monomers. This range of properties allows for many applications and importantly due to the surviving Michael acceptor moieties, solubility and cross-linking can be specifically tailored, post polymerisation, to the desired function. An improved synthesis of itaconate and succinate co-polymers, via the initial formation of an itaconate bis-diol, is also demonstrated for the first time, resulting in significantly improved itaconate incorporation.

The addition of water to dihydrolevoglucosenone (Cyrene) creates a solvent mixture with highly unusual properties and the ability to specifically and efficiently solubilise a wide range of organic compounds notably aspirin, ibuprofen, salicylic acid, ferulic acid, caffeine and mandelic acid. The observed solubility enhancement (up to 100-fold) can only be explained by the existence of micro-environments mainly centered on Cyrene’s geminal diol. Surprisingly the latter acts as a reversible hy-drotrope and regulates the polarity of the created complex mixture. The possibility to tune the polarity of the solvent mixture through the addition of water, and the subsequent generation of variable amounts of Cyrene’s geminal diol, creates a continu-um of green solvents with controllable solubilization properties. The effective presence of microheterogenieties in the Cyre-ne/water mixture was adequately proven by 1) FT-IR/DFT showing Cyrene dimerization 2) electronspray mass-spectrometry demonstrating the existence of dimers of Cyrene’s geminal diol and 3) the variable presence of single or multiple tetrame-thylsilane (TMS) peaks in the 1H NMR spectra of a range of Cyrene/water mixtures. The Cyrene-water solvent mixture is im-portantly not mutagenic, barely ecotoxic, bio-derived and endowed with tuneable hydrophilic/ hydrophobic properties.