Development of a novel Polyketone biomaterials platform from renewable resources

Commodity plastics derived from petroleum sources are inherently non-degradable or minimally degradable which inevitably leads to the formation of microplastics or nanoplastics. The adverse consequences impact on the environment and human health. Over the past few years, renewable feedstocks, such as biomass, have become an alternative to petrol-derived feedstocks, thanks to their sustainability, abundance, and being environmentally friendly. Nonetheless, the manufacturing process still needs some non-degradable additives to enhance the mechanical properties and thermal stability of the polymer materials from renewable resources. Polyketones (PKs) are generally an important family of thermoplastics, along with polyesters, polycarbonates, polyamides, polyurethanes, polyurethanes, and polyimides, that have been developed and manufactured to fulfill the needs of modern society for high-performance materials with excellent thermomechanical properties. Recently, polyketones have gained interest for some applications related to photo-triggered materials use. PKs are generally prepared via chain-growth metal-mediated polymerization which usually uses carbon monoxide and transition metals. In addition to the harm of monomer and catalyst used, this strategy also limits the structural complexity and range of thermomechanical properties of the resultant polyketones. Conventional polyketones contain polyolefin backbones and behave like polyolefin in their photodegradation. They commonly degrade into a nonselective degradation pathway which is known as Norrish pathways. Therefore, a step-growth click polymerization is employed to address these challenges by inserting renewable and sustainable building blocks in their preparation. Manipulating the pendant group or main chain of the polymers enables structurally diverse polyketones and variable thermomechanical properties, yet their degradation can be controlled through well designed photocleavable linkage. The resulting polyketones (F-C6A and Poly(HMDA10-co-EDEA90) display comparable tensile strengths to PET and HDPE respectively (but having half of their elongation at break values) with high glass transition temperature values (amorphous behavior). In addition, they enable to degrade under controlled UV light via a novel photodegradation pathway.