Enzymic polymerisation, characterisation and market evaluation of a set of novel bioplastic co-polymers derived from renewable resources

无论是在英国还是在全球范围内，塑料的生产规模都很大，并被用于我们周围的功能性产品中。目前，绝大多数塑料都是由不可再生的耗尽的化石资源生产的，主要是原油。最近，人们对可持续和可再生生物质转化为单体和聚合物进行了广泛的研究，理想地寻求利用最丰富的废弃生物质——木质纤维素。Biome公司（公司领导）的总体战略是利用工业生物技术从这种木质纤维素中生产出新型的高功能聚酯。这个与约克大学和利物浦大学合作的项目将采用木质纤维素衍生的芳香二酸（单体），并在多步聚合中利用酶来生产一组有针对性的新型共聚物，并探索它们的特性。该项目还将确定这种生物催化是否可以在二酸生产的现场进行，并将提供生物衍生塑料的数量，以评估其在高价值市场的潜力，并将证明生物催化反应的能力扩大到100公斤。先前的工作（由Innovate UK支持）已经证明，使用工程细菌/酶可以从木质素和纤维素中生产芳香族二酸，并且已经在扩大二酸形成的规模。这些二酸已经被用于制造第一批小批量的新型聚酯共聚物（具有令人兴奋的初步性能），促进了该项目的应用。该项目将通过评估诱导链分支，从而改变其物理性质和最终应用，进一步促进这些新型生物衍生聚合物的发展。该公司还将对这些聚合物的报废选择进行初步调查，包括将其分解为单体单位，确保在产品使用后将其环境足迹降至最低。

Plastics are produced on an enormous scale, both within the UK and globally, and are used in functional products all around us. The vast majority of plastics are currently produced from no-renewable depleting fossil resources, predominately crude oil. There has been recent widespread research into the conversion of sustainable and renewable biomass to monomers and polymers, ideally looking to utilise the most abundant form of waste biomass, lignocellulose. Biome's (company lead) overall strategy is to produce novel highly functional polyesters from this lignocellulose by using industrial biotechnology. This project with the Universities of York and Liverpool will take lignocellulose-derived aromatic diacids (monomers) and utilise enzymes in a multi-step polymerisation to produce a targeted group of novel copolymers and explore their properties. The project will also determine whether this biocatalysis can be undertaken in-situ of the diacid production and will provide quantities of bio-derived plastics to be assessed for their potential in high value markets, and will also demonstrate the capability of the bio-catalytic reactions to be scaled to >1 kg. Previous work (supported by Innovate UK) has already demonstrated that the aromatic diacids can be produced from both lignin and cellulose using both engineered bacteria/enzymes and a scale-up for diacid formation is already underway. These diacids have already been used to make the first small quantities of novel polyester copolymers (with exciting preliminary properties), prompting this project application. This project will additionally contribute to the development of these novel bio-derived polymers through the assessment of induced chain-branching, thus altering their physical properties and eventual application. It will also undertake initial investigations into the end-of-life options for these polymers, including breaking them back down to monomer units, ensuring that after product use their environmental footprint will be minimised.