Biobased Polyamides: Recent Advances in Basic and Applied Research

• Published in: Macromolecular rapid communications. Vol. 37; no. 17; pp. 1391 - 1413
• Main Authors: Winnacker, Malte, Rieger, Bernhard
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2016; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Collating; Diamines; Dicarboxylic acids; Feasibility; Markets; Molecular Structure; Nylons; Nylons - chemical synthesis; Nylons - chemistry; Nylons - metabolism; Polyamide resins; Polyamides; polycondensation; Polymers; renewable feedstocks; Renewable resources; ring-opening polymerization; Sustainability; sustainable polymers; polycondensation; renewable feedstocks; polyamides; sustainable polymers; ring-opening polymerization
• ISSN: 1022-1336; 1521-3927; 1521-3927
• DOI: 10.1002/marc.201600181

Polyamides represent a very important class of polymers for a wide range of applications. After establishing in the 1930s with Nylon and Perlon, their impact on many branches has been continuously growing. In the context of developing sustainable polymers from renewable resources, many polyamides have meanwhile been described, which are based on natural building blocks. In addition to their sustainability, these biobased starting materials can provide special structural features to the resulting polymers and their properties, e.g., side groups, functionalities, or stereoinformation. While some biopolyamides are known for decades and well established (e.g., PA‐11, Rilsan), many other promising candidates have been described in fundamental research studies, which have high potential but whose capability—especially for large scale and/or high‐performance materials—will have to be proved in the future. Other candidates are very interesting from a scientific point of view, but with less potential for a market establishment due to price and/or feasibility reasons. This article aims at collating the recent developments in the field of biopolyamides and elucidating their properties and potential for different applications. In the context of sustainable polymers, many synthetic routes to biobased polyamides are described with a focus on recent developments, and the applications are discussed. It is shown that polycondensation of renewable dicarboxylic acids and diamines as well as ring‐opening polymerization of biobased, structurally interesting lactams afford a large variety of different polyamides with different properties for many applications.