Garrison Thomas F, Murawski Amanda, Quirino Rafael L
Department of Chemistry, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.
Department of Chemistry, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460, USA.
Polymers (Basel). 2016 Jul 14;8(7):262. doi: 10.3390/polym8070262.
A variety of renewable starting materials, such as sugars and polysaccharides, vegetable oils, lignin, pine resin derivatives, and proteins, have so far been investigated for the preparation of bio-based polymers. Among the various sources of bio-based feedstock, vegetable oils are one of the most widely used starting materials in the polymer industry due to their easy availability, low toxicity, and relative low cost. Another bio-based plastic of great interest is poly(lactic acid) (PLA), widely used in multiple commercial applications nowadays. There is an intrinsic expectation that bio-based polymers are also biodegradable, but in reality there is no guarantee that polymers prepared from biorenewable feedstock exhibit significant or relevant biodegradability. Biodegradability studies are therefore crucial in order to assess the long-term environmental impact of such materials. This review presents a brief overview of the different classes of bio-based polymers, with a strong focus on vegetable oil-derived resins and PLA. An entire section is dedicated to a discussion of the literature addressing the biodegradability of bio-based polymers.
迄今为止，人们已对多种可再生起始原料进行了研究，用于制备生物基聚合物，这些原料包括糖和多糖、植物油、木质素、松脂衍生物以及蛋白质。在各种生物基原料来源中，植物油因其易于获取、低毒性和相对低成本，成为聚合物工业中使用最广泛的起始原料之一。另一种备受关注的生物基塑料是聚乳酸（PLA），如今广泛应用于多种商业用途。人们固有地期望生物基聚合物也是可生物降解的，但实际上，由生物可再生原料制备的聚合物未必具有显著或相关的生物降解性。因此，为评估此类材料对环境的长期影响，生物降解性研究至关重要。本综述简要概述了不同类别的生物基聚合物，重点关注植物油衍生树脂和聚乳酸。其中专门有一部分讨论了关于生物基聚合物生物降解性的文献。
