TY - JOUR
T1 - From Glucose to Polymers
T2 - A Continuous Chemoenzymatic Process
AU - Maiti, Sampa
AU - Manna, Saikat
AU - Banahene, Nicholas
AU - Pham, Lucynda
AU - Liang, Zhijie
AU - Wang, Jun
AU - Xu, Yi
AU - Bettinger, Reuben
AU - Zientko, John
AU - Esser-Kahn, Aaron P.
AU - Du, Wenjun
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Dr. Benjamin Swarts, Dr. Mary Tecklenburg, and Dr. David Ash for helpful discussion and thoughtful inputs in this work. The authors gratefully acknowledge the National Science Foundation [CHE‐1413033] for the financial support.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Wiley-VCH GmbH
PY - 2020/10/19
Y1 - 2020/10/19
N2 - Efforts to synthesize degradable polymers from renewable resources are deterred by technical and economic challenges; especially, the conversion of natural building blocks into polymerizable monomers is inefficient, requiring multistep synthesis and chromatographic purification. Herein we report a chemoenzymatic process to address these challenges. An enzymatic reaction system was designed that allows for regioselective functional group transformation, efficiently converting glucose into a polymerizable monomer in quantitative yield, thus removing the need for chromatographic purification. With this key success, we further designed a continuous, three-step process, which enabled the synthesis of a sugar polymer, sugar poly(orthoester), directly from glucose in high yield (73 % from glucose). This work may provide a proof-of-concept in developing technically and economically viable approaches to address the many issues associated with current petroleum-based polymers.
AB - Efforts to synthesize degradable polymers from renewable resources are deterred by technical and economic challenges; especially, the conversion of natural building blocks into polymerizable monomers is inefficient, requiring multistep synthesis and chromatographic purification. Herein we report a chemoenzymatic process to address these challenges. An enzymatic reaction system was designed that allows for regioselective functional group transformation, efficiently converting glucose into a polymerizable monomer in quantitative yield, thus removing the need for chromatographic purification. With this key success, we further designed a continuous, three-step process, which enabled the synthesis of a sugar polymer, sugar poly(orthoester), directly from glucose in high yield (73 % from glucose). This work may provide a proof-of-concept in developing technically and economically viable approaches to address the many issues associated with current petroleum-based polymers.
KW - chemoenzymatic processes
KW - glucose
KW - poly(orthoester)
KW - polymer synthesis
KW - sustainable chemistry
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089686068&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/anie.202006468
DO - 10.1002/anie.202006468
M3 - Article
C2 - 33448568
AN - SCOPUS:85089686068
SN - 1433-7851
VL - 59
SP - 18943
EP - 18947
JO - Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
JF - Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
IS - 43
ER -
