Polylactide is an incredible material that comes from renewable feedstocks, can be used in place of polystyrene or polyethylene terephthalate, and can readily compost back to the building blocks from which it came. It is arguably the most useful synthetic thermoplastic prepared commercially from biobased feedstocks. On the elastomer front, however, there is really no practical parallel that has a low glass transition temperature, can be readily crosslinked or incorporated into block polymers, and can easily degrade. I will describe our various efforts to prepare such sustainable (and hopefully practica) elastomers from renewable resources that are not only high performing, but can also be biodegraded through enzymatic action or that can be chemically recycled through depolymerization strategies. The presentation will focus on new aliphatic polyesters and strategies to incorporate them into practical elastomers based on traditional crosslinking, polyurethane chemistry, and block polymers. I will also cover our collaborative efforts aimed at understanding and characterizing the enzymatic degradation of these materials.

Synthesis, properties, and degradation of practical sustainable elastomers

254th National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.