Renewable aliphatic polyester block polymers hold tremendous promise as advanced sustainable materials that can compete with their petrochemically-derived analogs in terms of mechanical performance, environmental impact and cost. One obstacle to broad implementation of such hybrid materials is the economical production of a low glass transition temperature aliphatic polyester that can be readily incorporated as a soft midblock into ABA triblock copolymers for use in, for example, thermoplastic elastomers, tough plastics, and adhesives. Through a metabolic engineering approach, our research team in the Center for Sustainable Polymers at the University of Minnesota has developed an efficient and scalable route to a cyclic ester that can be polymerized in a controlled fashion and combined with hard poly(lactide) A end blocks to give ABA triblock copolymers with tunable mechanical properties. β-methyl δ-valerolactone was prepared by dehydration and hydrogenation of mevalonate produced in high titers from sugar by an engineered microorganism. Ring-opening transesterification polymerization of this cyclic ester using an organocatalyst was used to generate the corresponding block polymers in a controlled fashion. In this talk I will cover the discovery and development of these and related materials for the preparation of next generation sustainable block polymers.

Poly(β-methyl δ-valerolactone) as a scalable and renewable soft segment for aliphatic polyester block polymers

249th National Meeting (2015)

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