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From Glucose to Polymers: A Continuous Chemoenzymatic Process
Author(s) -
Maiti Sampa,
Manna Saikat,
Banahene Nicholas,
Pham Lucynda,
Liang Zhijie,
Wang Jun,
Xu Yi,
Bettinger Reuben,
Zientko John,
EsserKahn Aaron P.,
Du Wenjun
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1521-3757
pISSN - 0044-8249
DOI - 10.1002/ange.202006468
Subject(s) - yield (engineering) , monomer , polymer , chemistry , orthoester , biochemical engineering , organic chemistry , process (computing) , regioselectivity , sugar , natural polymers , combinatorial chemistry , process engineering , computer science , materials science , catalysis , engineering , metallurgy , operating system
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.