| Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2018) | |
| Biomaterial Surfaces & Interfaces | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session BI-WeM |
| Session: | Soft Surfaces and Biofunctional Coatings |
| Presenter: | Arne Stamm, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden |
| Authors: | A. Stamm, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden L. Fogelström, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden P.-O. Syren, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden E. Malmström, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Polymers play an essential role in everyday life as materials in automotive, packaging and electronics and as compounds in medicine. Nevertheless, the finite supply of fossil fuels leads to an increased need for development of more sustainable materials from renewable sources. Renewable natural products from forestry, especially hemicellulose and terpenes, offers a highly versatile platform for green building blocks. By using Nature’s own biofunctionalizations, enzymes can be used as green catalysts for the valorization of abundant terpenes from pine-wood extractives. Enzymatic biotransformations enable mild processes for “activating” inert molecular building blocks in a highly controlled manner to afford renewable monomers. By combining in vitro synthetic biology and polymer chemistry, we have generated a novel class of bio based polymers, star ting from a naturally abundant terpene found in wood. Specifically, the terpene sobrerol, which can be achieved both enzymatically and by traditional organic chemistry, represented a promising starting compound for the preparation of such bio based monomers. Sobrerol consists of a multiple substituted cyclohexene unit, containing secondary and tertiary hydroxyl functionalities. The functionalities of sobrerol enable certain chemical modifications, whereas the cyclic structure provides hardness in subsequent polymeric products. Especially, the stereoselective methacrylation of the secondary hydroxyl group constituted a suitable monomer for radical polymerization. We were able to demonstrate that the enzymatic functionalization under benign conditions showed superior properties concerning yield, stereo selectivity and workup procedures of the methacrylated sobrerol (SobMa). Further, SobMA could be polymerized using both traditional and enzymatic procedures enabling a completely green route from a natural abundant product to a highly versatile polymer. Due to the remaining functional groups in the side chain, polySobMA provides a variety of possibilities for post-functionalization reactions and crosslinking. Polymeric films were obtained by crosslinking reactions using either the ene-, or the hydroxyl functionality of the sobrerol unit and their properties evaluated. Thus, the unaffected second functionality could be used for a broad range of further modifications to produce tailor-made polymer films targeting different fields of application. In conclusion we were able to present that the use of enzymatic or chemo-enzymatic processes is an ideal approach to convert terpenes into highly versatile polymeric coating materials.