School of Physical Science and Technology, ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, 201210, China.
Key Laboratory of Bio-Based Material Science & Technology, Ministry of Education, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, 150040, China.
Biotechnol J. 2019 Jan;14(1):e1700754. doi: 10.1002/biot.201700754. Epub 2018 Jul 19.
Living organisms produced nanopolymers (nanobiopolymers for short), such as nanocellulose, nanochitin, nanosilk, nanostarch, and microbial nanobiopolymers, having received widely scientific and engineering interests in recent years. Compare with petroleum-based polymers, biopolymers are sustainable and biodegradable. The unique structural features that stem from nanosized effects, such as ultrahigh aspect ratio and length-diameter ratio, further endow nanobiopolymers with high transparence and versatile processability. To fabricate these nanobiopolymers, a variety of mechanical, chemical, and synthetic biology techniques have been developed. The applications of the isolated nanobiopolymers have been extended from polymer fillers into wide emerging high-tech fields, such as biomedical devices, bioplastics, display panels, ultrafiltration membranes, energy storage devices, and catalytic supports. Accordingly, in the review, the authors first introduce isolation techniques to fabricate nanocellulose, nanochitin, nanosilk, and nanostarch. Then, the authors summarized the nanobiopolymers produced from biosynthetic pathway, including microbial polyamides, polysaccharides, and polyesters. On the other hand, most of these techniques require high energy consumption and usage of chemical reagents. In this regard, life cycle assessment offered a quantitative route to precisely evaluate and compare environmental benefits of different artificial isolation approaches, which are also summarized in the second section of the review.
生物体产生了纳米聚合物（简称纳米生物聚合物），如纳米纤维素、纳米几丁质、纳米丝、纳米淀粉和微生物纳米生物聚合物，近年来引起了广泛的科学和工程兴趣。与基于石油的聚合物相比，生物聚合物是可持续和可生物降解的。源自纳米尺寸效应的独特结构特征，如超高纵横比和长径比，进一步赋予纳米生物聚合物高透明度和多功能加工性。为了制造这些纳米生物聚合物，已经开发了各种机械、化学和合成生物学技术。从聚合物填料到生物医学设备、生物塑料、显示面板、超滤膜、储能装置和催化载体等新兴高科技领域，已经扩展了分离的纳米生物聚合物的应用。因此，在这篇综述中，作者首先介绍了用于制造纳米纤维素、纳米几丁质、纳米丝和纳米淀粉的分离技术。然后，作者总结了通过生物合成途径生产的纳米生物聚合物，包括微生物聚酰胺、多糖和聚酯。另一方面，这些技术中的大多数都需要高能耗和使用化学试剂。在这方面，生命周期评估提供了一种定量方法，可以精确评估和比较不同人工分离方法的环境效益，这也在综述的第二部分进行了总结。
