Green Synthesis of Amino Acid-Based Poly(Ester Urea)s

Industrial biotechnology has provided the polymer chemistry community with access to a wide variety of monomers that have traditionally been difficult to synthesize via fossil-fuel based chemistry, leading to new replacements for many of our unsustainable chemistries with both biomass-based and biodegradable polymers. While polyesters based on molecules like furan-dicarboxylic acid (FDCA), ethylene glycol, lactic acid, and 1,3-propanediol have attracted the most attention, these represent a small fraction of all possible polymers and are suitable replacements for only a fraction of synthetic polymers in use today. A complementary set of materials that may be useful for replacing many polyurethanes and polyamides is poly(ester urea)s (PEUs), a known class of biodegradable polymers that can be synthesized from a wide range of amino acids and diols that are easily produced via fermentation in high yield. The monomer chemistry of PEUs consists of both a diol and amino acid, presenting broad opportunities for structural manipulation and tunability to specific applications. However, existing synthetic routes for PEUs are time-consuming, carbon inefficient, and utilize toxic materials necessitating the development of a green chemistry route to produce these promising materials sustainably. We have developed a greener approach to the synthesis of these polymers, making them a truly sustainable biomass-derived and biodegradable chemistry.