Advantages And Disadvantages Of Bio-Based Polymers

Syllabus dot point: Use available evidence to gather and present data from secondary sources and analyse progress in the recent development and use of a named biopolymer. This analysis should name the specific enzyme(s) used or organism used to synthesise the material and an evaluation of the use or potential use of the polymer produced related to its properties

There are many accidental scientific discoveries in history, a very pertinent one being polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) or Teflon. It is most popularly used on non-stick cookware, but is also used as a stain repellant, in the production of artificial body parts, as an electrical wire insulator, and as pipe lining to prevent corrosion, among others. Invented by Dr. Roy Plunkett, PTFE pushed the limits of innovation and has been used to improve human health. In recent years, controversy has risen as to the environmental effects PTFE has during production, and this has become a rising issue that is still being researched. While PTFE is considered serendipitous, a high degree of background knowledge on its components was needed in order to make conclusions as to what

2.2 Materials and Methods: Polyamino-ether was obtained from the collaborator Dr. Kaushal Rege lab in Arizona state University. All other chemicals were obtained from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO). 2.2.1 Synthesis of the bioreducible modified-PAE: The obtained PAE polymer was synthesized by reacting neomycin with glycidyl ether at molar ratio of 1:2 as reported in detail by Rege et al. previously[14].

Polymers have been changing the way we live for over 100 years. Their availability and diverse qualities ensure that they are always in high demand, and new polymers are always being discovered. Where does this leave the now commonplace polymers which once were ubiquitous in commerce? Polymers such as polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride (Bakelite) and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) were first synthesised in 1907 and 1938 respectively, making them old by polymer standards. Although the original polymer applications are now redundant, they have found uses in new areas of society. This dynamic aspect of polymers is due to their unique structure. Polymers are created from many small molecules (or monomers) reacting with each other, and arranging

PHA is synthesized by bacteria under natural conditions (up to 30% of the dry weight of the bacteria), and up to 90% polymer by weight in dry bacteria if the fermentation conditions are carefully controlled, limiting oxygen and nitrogen.

biodegradable cationic PDMAEMA-PHB-PDMAEMA triblock copolymers were less toxic than PEI (25k) and PDMAEMA homopolymers and showed positive charge in aqueous solution that This provides the copolymer with a strong condensation ability with the negatively charged plasmid DNA (pDNA) to form copolymer/ pDNA polyplexes, which is an important process to prevent pDNA degradation by nucleases also PDMAEMA-PHB-PDMAEMA/DNA polyplexes displayed significantly better gene transfection when using with luciferase/plasmid in Cos7 and HEK293

Ebnesajjad, S. (2013). Handbook of biopolymers and biodegradable plastics: properties, processing and applications. Oxford: William Andrew, 2013.

stacking interactions and size effects and should be kept similar to that of the conventional

Chitin the second most abundant polysaccharide is synthesized by an enormous number of living organisms including fungi and insects. These biopolymers have found many applications in different areas such as: packaging material, membrane for removal of metal ions, dyes and pigments in waste water engineering; anti-cholesterol, fat binding, preservative and food additive in food industry; seed and fertilizer coating, controlled agrochemical release in agriculture; surface treatment, photographic paper in pulp and paper industry; moisturizer, body creams and lotions in cosmetics and toiletries. It has also found wide applications in biomedical such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, wound dressing, scaffolds, cancer diagnosis, etc. The majority of these versatile applications are coming of its non-toxicity, biocompatibility and biodegradability.

P-aminophenol on diazotization gives diazonium salt. When 3-pentadecynyl phenol dissolved in chilled solution of KOH in methanol was added dropwise in diazonium salt solution gives red dye (Yield 80 %). Thus HPPDP have been synthesized as shown in Fig.10. Further, HPPDP dissolved in DMF as solvent followed by reaction with 1, 6- diisocynato hexane (HDI) to synthesize polyurethane.Changqing Fu et al. [62] has synthesized the polyurethane from aromatic cardanol (industrial grade) based polyol by using thiol–ene coupling (shown in Fig.9). The resulting polyols were then polymerised with Hexamethylene diisocynate (HDI) to produce the corresponding bio-based polyurethane. Thiol-ene chemistry, for synthesis of cardanol based polyol can be used to

Short chain length PHA’s consist of four or less carbon atoms in the monomer. Medium chain PHA’s consist of carbon atoms that are in between six and fourteen carbon atoms. A type of bacterium which can produce short-chain-length PHA is cupriaviclus necator[9,26]. Then a type of bacterium which can produce medium-chain-length PHA is P. oleovorans and pseudomonas putida. [26]. Short-chain-length polyhydroxyalkanaoates could be produced on a large scale commercially because of its high yield. This is unlike medium chain length PHA that isn’t produced in large quantities because of its low yield.[29] Polyhydroxyalkanaoates are very important because of their structure and similarities to normal plastics. The awareness of polyhydroxyalkanaoates in increasing by the day. These polymers are biodegradable which makes them

A plastic water bottle must be able to hold it shape, withstand high temperatures, must not absorb the water or release toxins, should be easy to clean and must be eco-friendly. To understand this, it is first necessary to define polymers, how they are made and the intermolecular forces that lead to polymers properties. Two polymers, Polylactic acid and polypropylene, will be explained to illustrate the connection between structure and properties. The differences and similarities will be explained, followed by the environmental and economic considerations. These factors will be used to show why Polylactic acid is preferable to other polymers for the production of water bottle.

Polymers are basically molecules that are either identical or in similar subunits (monomers) arranged in a repetitive series. Simple sugars are either in the form of monosaccharide (1 monomer), or dissacharide (2 monomers). Examples of monosaccharides are glucose and fructose, while lactose (glucose + galactose) and maltose (glucose + glucose) are dissacharides wherein its 2 monomers are covalently bonded by a removal of water. Simple sugars become complex carbohydrates when it is a polysaccharide (3+ monomers). A complex carbohydrate such as cellulose is comprised of a linear chain of glucose monomers (even a few thousands) that are arranged in a uniform pattern wherein one monomer is “upside down” to the monomer bonded to it. Protein (a polypeptide), on the other hand is another type of polymer that is made up of various peptides (a peptide is a molecule made of two amino acids). Peptides are made using peptide bonds, a process in which an amino acid’s amino group

Polylactic acid is a revolutionary plastic and is being labelled the “post-petroleum plastic” as it is made up of 100% renewable resources which are starch rich products such as corn and sugarcane. The hype for this plastic is huge due to the current state of the world climate and the pollution that humans are casting upon the planet. There are many different ways that Polylactic acid can be formed as lactic acid has enantiomers or optical isomers and this causes the processes of forming Polylactic acid to have different paths as lactic acid can take different forms. I will focus on the production of poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) which forms as a result of the polymerisation of L,L-lactide. This production of the renewable and biodegradable polymer Polylactic Acid is a very complicated process and involves many steps. The steps of this process go like this… Starch (C6H10O5)  L-lactate (C3H5O3)  L,L-Lactide ((C6H8O4) + H2O)  Polylactic Acid ((C3H4O2)n) in the form of poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA). First of all the corn has to be wet milled, this separates the starch within the corn from the water. Once the starch has been separated it is then heated with enzymes or acid, sometimes both in order to convert the starch completely to dextrose. The dextrose is then fermented and the multiple steps of glycolysis begin to take place with enzyme catalysts being used in order to reach the chemical Pyruvate (COO-COCH3). The Pyruvate reacts with Hydrogen and enzyme catalysts to form

Polylactic acid polymers (PLA) appear to be a very promising material for use as a