SusChEM: Resourceful Polymers Derived from Polyhydroxyl Natural Products

有机聚合物材料，通常被认为是塑料，对人类生活的方方面面都至关重要，从我们穿的衣服到我们使用的电脑，再到我们开车的轮胎，再到给药的设备。聚合物材料面临的两个关键挑战是它们来自不可再生的石化来源的生产，以及它们在环境中的持久性。为了应对这些挑战，德克萨斯农工大学的Wooley教授、Darensburg教授和Sun博士正在设计策略，用天然的积木生产聚合物材料，同时还加入了可降解的连接，一旦材料达到其使用寿命，就可以再生这些天然的积木。该项目包括研究和教育部分，以影响化学和工程学科中关于聚合物材料的基础知识。该研究小组正在开发合成化学方法来生产一系列聚碳酸酯和聚磷酸酯，这些聚碳酸酯和聚磷酸酯来自可再生资源，表现出新的化学、物理和机械性能，并经过水解分解成对生物有益或无害的副产品。在一个方向上，该项目结合了多羟基天然产物作为单体构建块和碳酸盐作为连接。产生的聚合物的水解性降解产生多羟基化合物和二氧化碳。在第二个方向上，在生物大分子，如DNA或RNA中常见的磷酯中，利用了同样来自自然的磷酸酯连接。研究活动包括：1)从多羟基天然产物合成功能单体；2)通过逐步缩合或开环聚合将这些单体转化为线性、支化或交联的聚合物材料；3)严格的表征研究以确定其组成、结构、物理化学和机械性能；以及4)研究水解稳定性和降解产物。

Organic polymer materials, commonly thought of as plastics, are of critical importance to every aspect of human life, from the clothes that we wear to the computers that we use to the tires on which we drive to the devices through which medicines are administered. Two key challenges with polymer materials are their production from petrochemical sources, which are non-renewable, and their persistence in the environment. To address these challenges, Professors Wooley, Darensbourg, and Dr. Sun of Texas A&M University are designing strategies to produce polymer materials from natural building blocks while also incorporating degradable linkages that regenerate those natural building blocks once the material has completed its useful lifetime. This project includes research and educational components to impact fundamental knowledge about polymer materials across the disciplines of chemistry and engineering. The research team is developing synthetic chemistry approaches to the production of a series of polycarbonates and polyphosphoesters that originate from renewable resources, exhibit novel chemical, physical and mechanical properties, and undergo hydrolytic breakdown to biologically-beneficial or benign by-products. In one direction, this project combines polyhydroxyl natural products as the monomeric building blocks and carbonates as the linkages. Hydrolytic degradation of the resulting polymers produces the polyhydroxyl compound plus carbon dioxide. In a second direction, phosphoester linkages are utilized, again borrowing from Nature, in phosphoesters commonly found in biological macromolecules, such as DNA or RNA. The research activities include 1) the synthesis of functional monomers from polyhydroxyl natural products, 2) the transformation of those monomers into linear, branched or crosslinked polymer materials by either step-growth condensation or chain-growth ring-opening polymerizations, 3) rigorous characterization studies to determine the compositions, structures, physicochemical and mechanical properties; and 4) the study of hydrolytic stabilities and degradation products.