Monomers renewable

S. Manjula, Studies on Polymerization Characteristics of Naturally Occurring (Renewable) Monomers, Ph.D thesis, Regional Research Laboratory, Trivandrum and Kerala University, Trivandrum, India (1988). 

Species of Clostridium have been used on a very large scale for the production of industrial solvents such as acetone and butanol. Many clostridia ferment sugars with the formation of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and butyric acid. Some of them convert butyric acid to butanol and the acetic acid to ethanol and acetone. The acetone-butanol process by Clostridium acetobutylicum expanded after its introduction just before World War I. Although the industry has now been almost totally replaced by the synthetic production from oil, it may again be of interest for the production of renewable monomers. 

Burdett, K.A., L.D. Harris, P. Margl, B.R. Maughon, T. Mokhtar-Zadeh, P.C. Saucier and E.P. Wasserman, Renewable Monomer Feedstocks Via Olefin Metathesis Fundamental Mechanistic Studies of Methyl Oleate Ethenolysis with the First-Generation Grubbs Catalyst, Organometallics, 23, 2027-2047 (2004). 

DP 5 Let the metal freely migrate along the polymer chain attached to it and determine which site of renewed monomer insertion will lead to formation of the products specified in (i), (ii) and (hi). 

Crivello, J.V., and R. Narayan, Epoxidized Triglycerides as Renewable Monomers in Photoinitiated Cationic Polymerization, Chem. Mater. 4 692-699 (1992). 

CriveUo, J.V. and Narayan, R. (1992) Epoxidized triglycerides as renewable monomers in photoinitiated... 

Miscellaneous Transformations Leading to Renewable Monomers, Solvents, and Specialty Chemicals... 

As two non-petroleum chemicals readily accessible from renewable resources, both furfural and HMF are suitable starting materials for the preparation of versatile fine chemicals [14, 102-106] and can also serve as renewable monomers for preparation of sustainable polymer products [107]. Schemes 3, 4, and 5 depict the stmctures of the selected furan-based monomers [107-113]. As a typical precursor, furfural can be converted to a vast array of furan-based monomers bearing a moiety which can normally be polymerized by chain-growth polymerization mechanisms [108-113]. As shown in Scheme 3, these monomers are all readily polymerizable by chain-growth reactions. However, depending on their specific structure, the nature of the polymerization mechanism is different, ranging from free radical, cationic, anionic, to stereospecific initiation [108-113]. On the other hand, furfuryl... 

Overall, the recent developments highlighted in this chapter have documented increasing academic and industrial efforts in the utilization of biomass-derived renewable monomers for the production of synthetic polymers that offer sustainable alternatives to the current petroleum-based polymers. Furthermore, some of the sustainable polymers also exhibit enhanced or unique materials properties over the polymers derived from the depleting resources. Such efforts will continue in the future, with an emphasis being placed on making biomass-derived polymers not only renewable but also technically and economically practicable and competitive. 

Renewable monomers derived from vanillin and fatty acids have been studied with various polymerization techniques, such as ADMET, thiol-ene addition, and polycondensation (91). The synthesis of such monomers is shown schematically in Figure 4.17. 

The addition of thiols to terpenes, e.g., limonene and pinene have been studied (3). This is a simple approach to synthesize a wide range of alcohol or ester functionalized renewable monomers. The endocycUc and exocyclic double bonds of the limonene monomers exhibit different reactivities. By a variation of the thiol feed ratio monoaddition or diaddition products can be obtained. Similarity, pinene derivates can be prepared. 

However, up to now the most important result in starch technology from Novamont is the attainment of nanostructured composites, where thermoplastic starch represents the dispersed phase and different types of aliphatic/aromatic copolyesters represent the continuous phase [85, 86]. In these products, nanostructured starch gives an important contribution to the mechanical performance in terms of toughness and stability at different humidity and temperature conditions. The development of new aliphatic and aliphatic/aromatic copolyesters, containing renewable monomers from vegetable oils, has further improved the performances of these kinds of products and their environmental compatibility. 

Besides the aliphatic polyester PBS, the heteroaromatic polyester polyethylene furanoate (PEF), based on the renewable monomer furandicarboxylic acid, is particularly suitable for moulding processes. PEF is attracting increasing interest worldwide as a substitute for PET. 

Moreover, a description of the incoming renewable monomers for the synthesis of biodegradable polyesters will be supplied as interest in this subject is increasing year by year. 

With regards to biodegradable polyester production, the use of renewable monomers can be of particular interest as not only can the final products be biodegraded, hence avoiding plastic accumulation in landfills, but also the biodegradation products (usually CO2 and water) are used by plants to produce the renewable monomers. As can be deduced, this cradle-to-grave cycle can significantly reduce the carbon footprint due to plastic production. 

In recent years, a breakthrough towards renewable monomer production has been possible with the help of genetic science, which can manipulate microorganisms to produce specific molecules from vegetable raw materials. 

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