  To extend fossil oil supplies, sustainable feed stocks for the production of
useful reagents and polymers should be harnessed. In this regard, chemicals
derived from plants are excellent candidates. While the vast majority of plant
sources used for polymer science only contain CxHyOz, alkaloids such as
caffeine, nicotine, and theophylline possess nitrogen functionality that can
provide new functions for bio-derived polymers and their synthesis. In this
context, we exploited the chemistry of theophylline, a natural product found in
chocolate and tea, to create a cationic poly(theophylline) in a straightforward
fashion for the first time. We demonstrate how this new polymer can be
synthesized and used for the creation of narrowly disperse cationic
microspheres.
