RUI: Collaborative Research: Greener Processes for the Sustainable Development of Bio-Based Polyesters

开发生产生物聚合物的绿色分离和加工策略有利于确保未来几代人使用环境可持续的材料。目前的单体生产方法通常使用石油，需要危险的工艺。生物质为聚合物化学提供了多种替代起始材料。然而，目前从生物质中分离单体及其聚合的策略是有限的，而且在实践中往往是不可持续的。可持续生物聚合物的开发需要一个整体的方法，以解决与单体采购和提取、聚合物创建和终点反馈相关的关键可持续问题。该项目旨在利用剩余生物质来源、绿色提取技术和适当的聚合物合成方法，将结构刚性的单体(即五环三萜醇)融入聚合物网络的骨架中，并阐明这些从天然原料中提取的聚酯的加工、结构和性能之间的基本关系。主要考虑因素包括原料的来源、分离以及随后转化为有用聚合物的方法。最终，所获得的知识将为将生物精制产品转变为满足社会不同需求的大分子提供动力和教育。具体目标旨在从根本上理解从绿色分离技术衍生的生物聚合物的加工-结构-性能关系。该项目将全面考虑原料的选择、提取技术、聚合物合成和聚合物降解，以最终生产环境可持续的工艺和产品。迭代方法将在整个过程中使用可持续发展指标，并对这些指标进行评估，以从经济和环境角度确定整个过程的可行性。通过将工艺可持续性指标整合到聚合物开发中使用的传统加工-结构-性能关系方法中，该方法将改变传统的聚合物设计范式，通过以下相互关联的并行目标来全面解决聚合物功能和可持续性：(I)利用绿色溶剂提取来从可再生原料中生产丰富的单体馏分；(Ii)可持续地开发聚酯热塑性塑料和从分级生物质中提取的热固性；以及(Iii)评估工艺技术经济和生命周期可持续性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The development of green separation and processing strategies to produce bio-based polymers is beneficial to ensure environmentally sustainable materials for future generations. Current monomer production methods typically use petroleum and require hazardous processes. Biomass offers diverse alternate starting materials for polymer chemistries. However, current strategies for isolating monomers from biomass and their polymerizations are limited and often not sustainable in practice. The development of sustainable bio-based polymers requires a holistic approach that tackles key sustainability issues associated with monomer sourcing and extraction, polymer creation, and end-point feedback. This project seeks to utilize residual biomass sources, green extraction techniques, and appropriate polymer syntheses to incorporate structurally rigid monomers (i.e. pentacyclic triterpenols) into the backbones of polymer networks and elucidate the fundamental relationship between processing, structure, and properties of these polyesters derived from natural feedstocks. Key considerations include the methodologies by which feedstocks are sourced, separated, and subsequently translated into useful polymers. Ultimately, knowledge gained will provide impetus for and education in the transformation of bio-refined products into macromolecules that meet the diverse needs of society.Specific objectives target a fundamental understanding of the processing-structure-property relationships of bio-based polymers derived from green separation techniques. The project will holistically consider the choice of feedstock, extraction technique, polymer synthesis, and polymer degradation to ultimately produce environmentally sustainable processes and products. An iterative approach will use sustainability metrics throughout and will evaluate these metrics to determine the overall process viability from economic and environmental perspectives. By integrating process sustainability metrics into traditional processing-structure-property relationship methodology used in polymer development, the approach will shift the conventional polymer design paradigm to comprehensively address both polymer function and sustainability via the following interconnected, concurrent aims: (I) Leverage green solvent extraction to produce enriched monomer fractions from renewable feedstocks, (II) Sustainably develop polyester thermoplastics and thermosets derived from fractionated biomass, and (III) Evaluate process technoeconomic and life cycle sustainability.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.