Novel polymers from terpenes

我们的社会在生活的方方面面都完全依赖于聚合物（塑料）；从服装到电脑，再到新型复合材料、汽车和化妆品。一个关键的问题是我们如何在未来继续使用和消费聚合物？2010年，每个美国公民向垃圾填埋场丢弃了140公斤的塑料，这个数字在全球许多其他国家也相似，而且还在上升。随着越来越多的经济体向西方消费水平靠拢，我们将无法继续以同样的方式使用聚合物。从可再生资源中提取的可替代聚合物，学习制造和使用这些聚合物将产生重大的积极影响，并有助于缓解垃圾填埋场的问题，特别是当可再生聚合物是可降解的。但是，尽管有这么多的炒作和期望，可再生聚合物目前只占商业生产的所有聚合物的不到5%。这个数字还在增长，但问题是，大多数可再生聚合物的性能根本不如从石油中提取的传统商品聚合物。在这个建议中，我们专注于利用萜烯来形成一系列有价值的新聚合物。萜烯是从柑橘类废弃物中提取的。d-柠檬烯（从橘子皮中提取）和木材废料(如。α -蒎烯和β -蒎烯)，并且已经可以以多吨的规模销售，并在香水、芳香剂和医疗保健等市场上销售。过去，人们一直在努力直接从萜烯中制造聚合物，因为它们的结构中含有烯烃部分，这似乎提供了在简单、容易获得、容易缩放的条件下通过自由基途径进行聚合的机会。不幸的是，广泛的研究只产生了质量差的低分子量或交联聚合物，没有找到商业用途。现在，我们将以诺丁汉大学最近的概念验证研究为基础，克服这一障碍。我们已经开发出一种简单而通用的方法来生产新的萜烯基单体，这种单体可以很容易地“加入”到现有的商业聚合工艺中。我们的方法提供了使用现成的自由基和受控聚合路线来创建新的聚合物和共聚物的可能性，这些聚合物和共聚物可以针对商品和特种塑料领域的应用进行定制。为了实现这些目标，我们组建了一个多学科的学术团队，汇集了提供这些新单体和聚合物所需的所有关键技能和专业知识，并对其特性进行表征，以确定合适的应用领域。此外，我们将利用来自聚合物行业行业合作伙伴的大力投入、支持和建议，将新材料瞄准潜在的应用和产品。

Our society is completely dependent upon polymers (plastics) in every facet of our lives; from clothes to computers to novel composites, cars and cosmetics. A key question is how can we continue to use and consume polymers in the future? In 2010 every citizen of the USA discarded 140 kg of plastic into land-fill and those figures are similar and rising in many other societies around the globe. As more economies move towards Western levels of consumption, we simply will not be able to continue to use polymers in the same way. There are alternative polymers that are derived from renewable resources, and learning to make and use these will have a significant positive impact and will help to alleviate the issues of landfill, particularly when the renewable polymers are degradable. But despite all the hype and expectation, renewable polymers currently account for less than 5% of all polymers produced commercially. This figure is growing but the problem is that most renewable polymers simply do not perform as well as the traditional commodity polymers that are derived from oil. In this proposal we focus upon utilising terpenes to form a range of valuable new polymers. Terpenes are derived from citrus waste ( eg. d-limonene from orange peel) and from wood waste (eg. the alpha- and beta-pinenes) and are already available on the multi-tonne scale and sold into markets from fragrances to aromas and healthcare. There have been significant efforts in the past to create polymers directly from terpenes because their structures contain alkene moieties that appear to offer the opportunity for polymerisation via free radical routes under simple, readily accessible conditions that could easily be scaled. Unfortunately, extensive studies have yielded only poor quality low molecular weight or cross-linked polymers that have not found commercial utility. Now, we will build on recent proof of concept studies at Nottingham that could overcome this log-jam. We have developed a simple and versatile approach to produce new terpene based monomers that can be easily "dropped-in" to existing commercial polymerisation processes. Our approach offers the possibility to use readily available free radical and controlled polymerisation routes to create new polymers and co-polymers that can be tailored for application across the commodity and specialty plastics landscape. To achieve these goals we have assembled a multidisciplinary academic team that brings together all of the key skills and expertise needed to deliver these new monomers and polymers, and to characterise their properties to determine suitable application areas. In addition, we will utilise strong input, support and advice from industry partners from across the polymer sector to target the new materials towards focussed potential applications and products.