Currently a trend is occurring to use more sustainable feedstocks for the manufacturing of commodity and specialty polyesters. This endeavor opens up the use of alternative monomers that can find their use in, for example, clothing or automotive applications. In light of this trend we report here on the use of biobased dimethyl itaconate and 1,3-propanediol monomers, in polyesters with the final application in automotive. The presence and reactivity of the double bond in the itaconate building blocks directed us to the use of low temperature polycondensation technologies such as using enzymes as catalysts. With CAL B as the catalyst we reveal the importance of the enzyme carrier for the kinetics of the reaction as well as the detrimental effect of leached enzyme on the mechanical properties of the final product. Using a covalent immobilization technique to introduce the enzyme on a gelatin-chitosan based carrier proved to circumvent the leaching of the enzyme. This led to a successful scale-up from gram scale to 15kg of material thus demonstrating the scalable and robust nature of the enzymatic polymerization. In a next step 2,5-furandicarboxylic ester and dimethylsuccinate were incorporated in the polymers of DMI and 1,3-propanediol to broaden the scope of the applicable monomers and tenability of the thermal and mechanical properties. This range of polymers allowed structure-property relationships to be determined after crosslinking the itaconate double bonds in the different polymers with styrene using free radical, a procedure similar to the final application of the commercial materials applied in automotive industry. Where the pure itaconate based polymers diplayed thermally stable, brittle materials, the introduction of the stiff aromatic furandicarboxylate decreased the heat deflection temperature as well as the glass transition temperature slightly, furthermore it led to less brittle materials as evidenced from the outer-fibre strain and the flexural strength.

Industrial biocatalysis for material sciences @ DSM

248th National Meeting (2014)

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