TAGS: Biobased Solutions
Scientists from Bath's Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies have made a sustainable polymer using xylose. The new nature-inspired material reduces reliance on crude oil products and its properties can be easily controlled to make the material flexible or crystalline.
Polymer with Scope for Additional Functionality
The researchers, from the University’s Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies, report the polymer, from the polyether family, has a variety of applications, including as a building block for polyurethane, as a
bio-derived alternative to polyethylene glycol or to polyethylene oxide.
The team says additional functionality could be added to this versatile polymer by binding other chemical groups such as fluorescent probes or dyes to the sugar molecule, for biological or chemical sensing applications. The team can easily produce hundreds of grams of the material and anticipate that production would be rapidly scalable.
Dr Antoine Buchard, Royal Society University Research fellow and reader at the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies, led the study.
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This polymer is particularly versatile because its physical and chemicals properties can be tweaked easily, to make a crystalline material or more of a flexible rubber, as well as to introduce very specific chemical functionalities. Until now this was very difficult to achieve with bio-derived polymers,” Buchard said.
Polymer Shows Potential for Variety of Applications
With this polymer a variety of applications can be targeted from packaging to healthcare or energy materials, in a more sustainable way.
Like all sugars, xylose occurs in two forms that are mirror images of each other – named D and L. The polymer uses the naturally occurring D-enantiomer of xylose, however the researchers have shown that combining it with the L-form makes the polymer even stronger.
The research team has filed a patent for their technology and is now interested in working with industrial collaborators to further scale up production and explore the applications of the new materials.
Source: University of Bath