Biobased Polyamides: Recent Advances in Basic and Applied Research

Abstract

Polyamides represent a very important class of polymers for a wide range of applications. After establishing in the 1930s with Nylon and Perlon, their impact on many branches has been continuously growing. In the context of developing sustainable polymers from renewable resources, many polyamides have meanwhile been described, which are based on natural building blocks. In addition to their sustainability, these biobased starting materials can provide special structural features to the resulting polymers and their properties, e.g., side groups, functionalities, or stereoinformation. While some biopolyamides are known for decades and well established (e.g., PA-11, Rilsan), many other promising candidates have been described in fundamental research studies, which have high potential but whose capability-especially for large scale and/or high-performance materials-will have to be proved in the future. Other candidates are very interesting from a scientific point of view, but with less potential for a market establishment due to price and/or feasibility reasons. This article aims at collating the recent developments in the field of biopolyamides and elucidating their properties and potential for different applications.

Keywords: polyamides; polycondensation; renewable feedstocks; ring-opening polymerization; sustainable polymers.