Bio-Sourced Polymers: Recent Advances

Abstract

Synthetic polymers are of major interest in the chemical industry, with a world production superior to 350Mt in 2016. They find applications in all the branches of industry, from packaging films to the stateof-the-art materials for sports and leisure activities, construction and aerospace industry or medical applications. Half of the amount of molecules produced by the petrochemical industry thus finds itself incorporated in the elaboration of polymer materials. With a production of 160Mt / year, ethylene can be considered as the major example of petroleum-based monomers. Green Chemistry introduced in 1998 by Anastase et al. (refer to Chapter 1 of this book), aims at providing solutions to reduce environmental impacts of our society. More precisely, this pursue of a more sustainable chemistry consists in using a source of renewable carbon to both reduce the dependence on fossil resources and thus stabilize greenhouse gas emissions (in particular CO 2 ) at the end of life. The use of renewable resources is of major interest in the elaboration of bio-sourced polymers. By using them, it is possible to mimick the fossil-based polymers -drop-in structures such as biopolyethylene-or to design new chemical structures, such as poly(lactic acid), PLA. Nowadays, the vegetal-based chemistry (renewable resources) mobilizes less than 0.5 % of arable land in the world. Some reminders of the definitions of the terms biomass, biopolymer, biodegradable polymer, bio-sourced polymer, bioplastic, biorefinery may be necessary: Biomass: material of biological origin (elaborated by alive bodies) with the exception of the materials of geological or fossil formation.Biopolymer: polymer developed by alive bodies, extracted from the biomass. Examples: polysaccharides, proteins, bacterial polymers.Biodegradable polymer: polymer the main degradation mechanism of which can be biotic, by enzymatic way. Under the action of micro-organisms and in the presence of oxygen (aerobic conditions), the organic compound decomposes totally within few months into carbon dioxide, water and mineral salts, with the appearance of a new biomass; in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic conditions), the organic compound decomposes totally within few months into carbon dioxide, methane, mineral salts and creation of a new biomass.Bio-sourced (or bio-based) polymer: synthetic polymer partially (generally > 20 %) or totally obtained from by-products stemming from the biomass. The bio-sourced character of a polymer can be determined in particular from its content in C14, according to the standard ASTM D6866. For the materials of totally fossil origin, the content in C14 is null.Bioplastic: term of popularization which indicates a 'biobased plastic' (restricted definition) and/or biodegradable (wider definition).Biorefinery: by analogy with a classic refinery, which works from fossil resources, a bio-refinery handles biomasses to produce, according to the cases, energy, fuels, materials, chemical and polymer products and/or animal and human feed. Today, two biopolymers ac...

Photocatalytic Transformation of Biomass and Biomass Derived Compounds—Application to Organic Synthesis

“…Polysaccharides and lignins are the most important compound families. In many cases, photocatalytic transformation of such material yields mixtures of monomers [ 9 , 69 , 72 , 73 ]. For example, the depolymerization of cellulose is photo-catalyzed by TiO 2 [ 71 , 74 , 75 ].…”

“…Also, lignin (about 20% of the biomass), which is the essential biomass-based source for aromatic compounds, contains higher amounts of oxygen [7]. The presence of numerous functional groups in such compounds makes them particular interesting for the production of new platform chemicals [8][9][10][11][12] for industry and also for many applications to fine chemistry and organic synthesis [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Catalysis is a further key element of green chemistry [21].…”

Ring‐opening polymerization of l‐lactide in the presence of α‐hydroxy‐γ‐butyrolactone

“…In addition to their degradable properties, various γ-lactones can be derived from natural resources. [24][25][26] As an example, α-hydroxy-γbutyrolactone (HBL) is a α-hydroxy functionalized γ-lactone that can be obtained from glucose using a biological synthetic route. [27][28][29] Among the biobased polymer family, [30][31][32][33] poly(lactide) (PLA) is a widely marketed polymer derived from renewable resources such as corn starch and potato.…”

“…Hong and Chen 23 demonstrated in 2016 that the use of efficient catalyst and specific reaction conditions, including monomer concentration and working below the celling temperature, enabled the synthesis of PγBL. In addition to their degradable properties, various γ‐lactones can be derived from natural resources 24–26 . As an example, α‐hydroxy‐γ‐butyrolactone (HBL) is a α‐hydroxy functionalized γ‐lactone that can be obtained from glucose using a biological synthetic route 27–29 …”