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

塑料在英国和全球范围内大规模生产，并用于我们周围的功能性产品。目前，绝大多数塑料都是由不可再生的化石资源（主要是原油）生产的。最近有广泛的研究将可持续和可再生的生物质转化为单体和聚合物，理想的是利用最丰富的废弃生物质形式，木质纤维素。Biome（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生产新型高功能聚酯。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族二酸（单体），并在多步聚合中利用酶来生产新型共聚物的目标群体并探索其特性。该项目还将确定这种生物催化是否可以在二元酸生产现场进行，并将提供大量生物衍生塑料，以评估其在高价值市场中的潜力，还将证明生物催化反应的能力可扩展到>1公斤。先前的工作（由Innovate UK支持）已经证明，芳香族二酸可以使用工程细菌/酶从木质素和纤维素中生产，并且二酸形成的规模已经在进行中。这些二元酸已经被用于制造第一批少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。该项目还将通过评估诱导链支化，从而改变其物理性质和最终应用，为这些新型生物衍生聚合物的开发做出贡献。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元，以确保产品使用后的环境足迹最小化。

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.