Environmental issues surrounding petrochemical derived plastics have provided a driving force for scientific research that aims to alleviate our dependence on polymers derived from fossil fuels.1 Terpenes, terpenoids and resin acids are a group of non-polar small molecules typically produced biosynthetically by many classes of trees and plants.2 The terpenes are a vast family of naturally occurring compounds, which show enormous structural diversity and provide a source of hydrocarbon rich biomass. They are abundant, inexpensive and do not directly compete with food sources, making them ideal small molecule building blocks for many applications including the area of renewable polymers. This research aims to transform limonene and a-pinene into useful, functionalised, terpene derived monomers, which have the potential to undergo polymerisation for the synthesis of renewable polymers. The project focused on synthesising new monomers for step growth polymerisation for polyester synthesis. The functionalisation of limonene and a-pinene to enable the synthesis of a renewable monomer which can undergo step-growth polymerisation is presented. More specifically, sustainable oxidation chemistry was used to synthetically modify limonene into a hydroxy-acid which can self-condense to form a polyester. The limonene derived monomer was subsequently polymerised in bulk to yield a low molecular weight novel polyester with a high percentage of the mass originating from renewable biomass.

Polymersation of limonene and α-pinene derived monomers for the syntheiss of novel renewable polyesters

255th National Meeting (2018)

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