Suberin fragments

These monomer mixtures have been fully characterized [67, 68] and thereafter submitted to polycondensation reactions with diisocyanates to produce polyurethanes [67] and on their own to prepare polyesters [69]. The preliminary results of the latter study, which called upon both chemical and enzymatic catalyses, showed that the ensuing aliphatic polyesters were interesting materials with 

It is important to emphasize that the exploitation of suberin monomers is not done to the detriment of the noble parts of cork, since these are extremely useful manifestations of renewable resources. What is used instead are the rejects of cork processing, like powder from stopper manufacturing and irregular morphologies. 

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The present chapter will, therefore, first give a general overview of the properties and applications of cork, as well as of its utilization as a starting material for the synthesis of liquid polyols, before dealing with the macro-molecular structure of suberin, its depolymerization methods, and the composition and applications of the ensuing fragment mixtures. 

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