Renewable building blocks for sustainable polyesters: new biotechnological routes for greener plastics

The next generation of plastics are expected to contribute to a massive reduction in the carbon footprint by the exploitation, in industrial productive processes, of renewable monomers such as polyols and dicarboxylic acids obtainable via biotechnological production. More specifically, there is a rising demand for advanced polyesters displaying new functional properties while meeting higher sustainability criteria. Polyesters are part of everyday life with applications in clothing, food packaging, car manufacturing and biomedical devices. This review is intended to provide an overview of the array of renewable building blocks already available for synthetic purposes and exploitable in the production of polyesters. Moreover, new greener routes for more environmentally friendly polyester production and processing are discussed, pointing out the major technological challenges. (c) 2016 Society of Chemical Industry