Until recently the large majority of chemistry building-blocks are stemmed from petroleum resources. However, due to increasing scarcity of oil resources leading to a surge in raw materials prices combined to environmental concern and impact on human health, renewable and viable alternatives are urgently needed. In this purpose, the use of naturally-occurring and renewable building blocks for the chemistry in general and for the polymer science in particular are of great interest.<sup>1</sup> Specifically polysaccharides, such as cellulose and lignin, that are found in all plants cell are particularly good candidates for the replacement of fossil-based raw materials through their multifunctionality and are already considered as a versatile chemical platform. Among these interesting sources of raw materials, hemicelluloses represents 15% to 35% of plants and wood but is nevertheless an underexploited source of bio-based building blocks due to difficult extraction from the cell wall. Furthermore, a great majority of the extracted hemicelluloses are low-molecular weight oligomers and cannot be valorized as such. In the present work, we relate the use of low-molecular weight hemicelluloses as a renewable building-block and its use for the design and the synthesis of new biopolymers through chain extension. Molecular, thermal and thermo-mechanical characterizations of the obtained polymers will be detailed.<br/><br/>

Development of new biopolymers from renewable building blocks derived from low-molecular weight hemicelluloses

255th National Meeting (2018)

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