SusChEM: Resourceful Polymers Derived from Polyhydroxyl Natural Products

有机聚合物材料，通常被认为是塑料，对人类生活的各个方面都至关重要，从我们穿的衣服到我们使用的电脑，到我们驾驶的轮胎，再到药物管理的设备。聚合物材料的两个关键挑战是它们的生产来自不可再生的石化来源，以及它们在环境中的持久性。 为了应对这些挑战，Wooley教授、Darensbourg教授和德克萨斯州农工大学的Sun博士正在设计策略，从天然结构单元生产聚合物材料，同时结合可降解的连接，一旦材料完成其使用寿命，这些天然结构单元就可以再生。该项目包括研究和教育部分，以影响化学和工程学科中有关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源于可再生资源，具有新颖的化学，物理和机械性能，并经过水解分解成为生物有益或良性的副产品。在一个方向上，该项目将多羟基天然产物作为单体结构单元和碳酸酯作为连接物相结合。 所得聚合物的水解降解产生多羟基化合物和二氧化碳。在第二个方向中，再次借用Nature，在生物大分子如DNA或RNA中常见的磷酸酯中利用磷酸酯键。研究内容包括：1）从多羟基天然产物中合成功能单体; 2）通过逐步缩聚或链增长开环聚合将这些单体转化为线性、支化或交联的高分子材料; 3）严格的表征研究，以确定组成、结构、物理化学和机械性能;水解稳定性及降解产物的研究。

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.