Downstream Processing Strategies for Synthesis of Biodegradable Polymers

Abstract

AbstractBiodegradable materials are used as an alternative for conventional plastics in consumer goods and medical applications. Since these materials have high production costs, their overall market share is still marginal. Due to having high energy request and significant demands in oil-derived solvents and chemicals, downstream processing is one of the bottlenecks in the biopolymer value chain. So careful study thorough of the environmental function of biopolymer recovery processes to improve their applicability is so important. In this study, deserving insights on biopolymer downstream processing environmental hotspots and to the way of their optimization accordingly will be prepared. Moreover, downstream alternative processes for high-grade and low-grade purifications from a techno-economic and an environmental perspective, possibilities of scale-up and challenges were evaluated.Since large amounts of energy for solvent recovery are needed in methods relying on solvent extraction, to reach higher efficiency in impurity removal compared to the mechanical disruption or chemical digestion needs more costs and impacts in all classifications. For having higher quality, solvent extraction is used. Moreover, solvents can be reasonably obtained from an integrated biorefinery. Optimization of chemical digestion is able to be reached by adding a chemical recovery unit. It seems that the most promising technology is mechanical disruption in terms of environmental performance.KeywordsBiodegradable polymerDownstream processingBiopolymer recoverySeparationPurification