Investigation for sustainable polymers - Insights for the use of glycerol as a biorefinery product for the synthesis of monomers and polymers

The use of bio-based resources for the production of added value products has become a key element of sustainable development. In this regard, biorefinery is a recognized approach to transforming renewable feedstocks into fuels, chemicals, and materials. However, the integration of chemicals production into current biorefineries is challenging. This route is the least developed and most complex of all biorefinery operations and bio-based chemicals suffer from direct competition with oil-based counterparts. Additionally, the overabundance of targets makes difficulty the decision making for companies. As such, there is a need to identify a core group of primary chemicals and secondary intermediates analogous to those in the petrochemical industry, including products with well-established value chains. To address some of these challenges, this work intends to contribute with ideas for the use of glycerol as a feedstock for polymers production. These polymers may be produced directly from glycerol or from some organic acid derived from glycerol. Such organic acids are in general flexible building blocks which may result in polymers for several applications, such as packaging materials and textile fibers, insulation foam, electronics and car parts. Among organic acids, succinic acid and lactic acid has a great potential to be used in the production of specialty polymers for medical implants because these materials can combine biodegradability with biocompatibility. Bearing this in mind, potential conversion routes of glycerol to lactic acid-derived specialty polymers are discussed in this work. Copyright © 2018, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l.