PolyForm: a unified approach to biodegradable polymers for fabric care formulations

PolyForm：用于织物护理配方的可生物降解聚合物的统一方法

• 批准号: MR/V027018/1
• 负责人: Clare Sarah Mahon
• 金额: $ 157.93万
• 依托单位: Durham University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FV027018%2F1
• 关键词: PolyForm; unified; approach; biodegradable; polymers

This fellowship will transform the environmental footprint of an essential human activity - the routine cleaning of clothes and other textiles. In the UK alone, dishwashers and washing machines use 360 billion litres of water each year and cost households £1.6bn in energy bills, with the majority of the electricity consumed in heating water (Energy Saving Trust, 2013). High-performance laundry and fabric care products enable effective cleaning at low temperatures with minimal quantities of water. They also extend garment lifetimes, avoiding their disposal in landfill sites. The performance of these formulations is only possible through the use of synthetic polymer additives, primarily derived from petroleum-based sources. Unfortunately, these persist in the environment over long timescales, greatly reducing the potential environmental benefits presented by their use. Replacing current technologies with biodegradable alternatives gives us an opportunity to drastically improve the environmental profile of many essential consumer products, but achieving this goal is complicated by the scale of the challenge; requiring not only the development of new sustainable materials, but ensuring their functionality in complex, multi- component formulations. Whilst there has been significant drive to develop biodegradable polymers, and build an understanding of the mechanisms by which they are removed from the environment, there remains a substantial knowledge-gap which renders the prediction of a material's biodegradability challenging. This difficulty presents a major bottleneck in the process of reformulation. Here, I present a unified approach to the replacement of synthetic polymer additives in laundry and fabric care formulations, combining academic and industrial excellence to fully address the scope of the challenge. My PolyForm fellowship will deliver sustainably-sourced polymers capable of high levels of functionality within detergent formulations. I will simultaneously develop new models and tools to assess and predict the biodegradability of new and existing materials, streamlining the process of incorporation of high- performance biodegradable additives within consumer products. These breakthroughs will have impacts far beyond the arena of laundry and fabric care.

该奖学金将改变一项基本人类活动的环境足迹-衣服和其他纺织品的日常清洁。仅在英国，洗碗机和洗衣机每年就使用3600亿升水，家庭能源账单花费16亿英镑，其中大部分电力用于加热水（节能信托，2013）。高性能洗衣和织物护理产品可在低温下以最少的水量进行有效清洁。它们还延长了服装的使用寿命，避免了在垃圾填埋场的处置。这些配方的性能只能通过使用主要源自石油的合成聚合物添加剂来实现。不幸的是，这些物质在环境中长期存在，大大降低了其使用带来的潜在环境效益。用可生物降解的替代品取代现有技术，使我们有机会大幅改善许多基本消费品的环境状况，但实现这一目标因挑战的规模而变得复杂;不仅需要开发新的可持续材料，而且需要确保其在复杂的多组分配方中的功能性。虽然开发可生物降解的聚合物已经有了很大的推动力，并建立了对它们从环境中去除的机制的理解，但仍然存在大量的知识缺口，这使得预测材料的生物降解性具有挑战性。这一困难是重订进程中的一个主要瓶颈。在这里，我提出了一种统一的方法来替代洗衣和织物护理配方中的合成聚合物添加剂，将学术和工业卓越结合起来，以充分应对挑战的范围。我的PolyForm奖学金将提供可持续来源的聚合物，能够在洗涤剂配方中实现高水平的功能。我将同时开发新的模型和工具，以评估和预测新的和现有材料的生物降解性，简化在消费品中掺入高性能生物降解添加剂的过程。这些突破的影响将远远超出洗衣和织物护理的竞技场。