Functional Polyesters from Renewable Monomers Through a New Reaction Mechanism

The polymer industry is intimately involved in every aspect of our lives, producing commodity plastics, modern electronics, biomedical materials, and much more. However, the vast majority of these polymers are derived from petroleum resources, creating both economic uncertainty and environmental risk. Biodegradable polyesters like poly(lactic acid) have provided one of the most promising solutions to this challenge, building plastics from renewable resources through a catalysed polymerisation reaction. Despite the hype and expectation, these renewable polymers account for less than 5% of all commercial polymers.

Why this limitation? Replacing all commodity plastics is difficult because of the limited range of properties accessible with PLA and its copolymers. One strategy to overcome this final roadblock is to develop polyesters with different functional groups - however current synthetic methods provide low yields of monomer feedstocks or derive from toxic reagents. This proposal builds on an important recent discovery of a new synthetic strategy to target these structurally divergent plastics. New monomers, built entirely from renewable resources, can be ring-opened to afford plastics with a broad range of functional groups. The products have the potential to transform traditional polymer markets, potentially serving as biodegradable mimics of polystyrene, as new biodegradable feedstocks for health applications, and as commodity plastics with a significantly broader range of thermal properties. Importantly, this project will also address the first stages of monomer and polymer scale up, moving the discovery from laboratory towards an industrial scale to facilitate commercialisation and materials testing of the new plastics.

Who will benefit from this research?
(1) The UK polymer industry and their global partners.
(2) Residents of the UK and abroad.
(3) The academic community and future employers of trained highly qualified personnel.

How will they benefit from this research?

(1) The UK polymer industry employs nearly 300,000 people and has annual sales worth over 2% of UK GDP. These polymer products are predominantly derived from petroleum resources and are commodity polymers with narrow profit margins. Biodegradable polymers are increasingly considered as eco-friendly alternatives to polyolefin materials, but properties often do not meet desired specifications. We are developing a simple, scalable strategy to diversify the UK polymer base, a strategy essential to continued economic growth in the polymer sector. More specifically, we are developing polyesters materials with applications in the commodity and specialty industries, and have already attracted significant interest from industry who will assess and advise on our progress. Importantly, in initial discussions it is apparent that each company seeks a different target - the broad scope of this strategy has the potential to deliver impact in multiple industries from packaging to healthcare to specialty polymers. The four partners will form an industrial advisory board and engage with us during the course of this project (see letters of support from Revolymer, Dart, Synthomer and DuPont).

(2) There are clear environmental and economic factors driving UK's global leading efforts to promote sustainability. Our efforts to develop bio-sourced speciality plastics will impact these goals. A key message to policy makers and the general public, especially with the growing strength the of UK's petroleum industry, is that environmental progress and sustainability can be paired with economic diversification and efficient use of resources. This proposal develops biodegradable polymers with a clean and green reaction, and importantly is flexible enough to install a range of functional groups. All of our systems are designed to degrade. By proving the utility of this strategy on a UK scale it is expected that IP may be out-licensed to the larger global polymer community and to global partners to further increase the impact of the research. In particular, the biodegradable polystyrene target of isotactic poly(mandelic acid) is a key area of sustainable growth.

In the long term, this will have a significant impact on the general public as well. We envisage three potential long-term benefits from this research program: (i) Less waste, less toxicity and improved sustainability for the production of specialty plastics will lead to safer products and reduced waste. (ii) The jobs in the polymer and manufacturing sectors that drive our economy will be more secure if new, diverse polymer products emerge through commercialisation of these polymer functionalisation strategies. (iii) New products, new plastics and new materials with improved properties and new-to-the-world applications will be developed, providing advances in our livelihoods. Communicating these benefits of a new world plastics industry is an essential step.

(3) As outlined in the academic beneficiaries section, we are developing a platform for global researchers to exploit. In addition, an important impact of this research programme will be the training of the postdoctoral researchers involved in the project, who will become specialist in the interfacial areas of small molecule catalysis and polymer synthesis, broadening their experience, employability and leadership.