The possibility of the development of eco-friendly polymers in the near future

??BIODEGRADABLE POLYMERS FOR SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

??Bio-based polymers are one of the best viable substitutes for out-of-date petroleum-based plastics. During the last few years, significant progress has been made towards biodegradable materials making use for packaging, agriculture, medicine, etc. Polymers formation supports plastic materials that are incessantly being working in an enlarged array of areas. Ergo,??several scientists are devoting time to changing outdated materials to produce more user-friendly products, and into scheming unique polymer compounds out of naturally cropping up constituents. Many biological things may be merged into decomposable polymer materials, with the most common being starch and fiber extracted from various types of plants. It is supposed that biodegradable polymer materials replace synthetic polymer production at a reduced cost, thus positively affecting?the environment and economically.

??????WHAT IS POLYMER

A?polymer?(Greek?poly-, "many" +?-mer, "part") is a?material?having very large?molecules, or macromolecules made of many?repeating subunits which have a very broad spectrum of properties,?both synthetic and natural polymers occupy essential and ubiquitous roles in our daily life. The term "polymer" was coined in 1833 by?Jons Jacob Berzelius. Because of sizeable molecular mass in comparison to small compounds, assemble novel physical properties have toughness, elasticity, viscoelasticity, and a propensity to form amorphous and semi-crystalline structures rather than?crystals. It is?considered in the fields of polymer science which includes polymer chemistry and polymer physics,?and?material science and engineering. It is commonly used in the plastics and composites industry as a substitute for plastic?or?resin. Really,?polymers consist of an array of materials with a number of properties. They are put in place in general domestic goods, in clothing and toys, in construction materials and insulation, and in several other products.??DEFINITION

A polymer is a?chemical compound?with molecules bonded together in long, repeating chains. Because of their structure, polymers have unique properties that can be tailored for different uses. Polymers are both man-made and naturally occurring. Rubber is a natural polymeric material used for last thousands of years. It has excellent elastic qualities, the result of a molecular polymer chain created by mother nature. Another natural polymer is shellac, a resin produced by the lac bug in India and Thailand, which is used as a paint primer, sealant, and varnish. The most common natural polymer on Earth is cellulose, an organic compound found in the cell walls of plants. It is used to produce paper products, textiles, and other materials such as cellophane.

Man-made or synthetic polymers include materials such as polyethylene, the most common plastic in the world found in items ranging from shopping bags to storage containers, and polystyrene, the material used to make packing peanuts and disposable cups. Some synthetic polymers are pliable (thermoplastics), while others are permanently rigid (thermosets). Still, others have rubber-like properties (elastomers) or resemble plant or animal fibers (synthetic fibers). These materials are found in all sorts of products, from swimsuits to cooking pans.

?INTRODUCTION OF THE VISION TO MAKE IMPROVED ENVIRONMENTAL FREIND

The disturbing awareness towards?environmental and waste management problems around the universe, status, and negative effects of fossil resources, all culminated in the invention of biodegradable polymers and?their usage is progressively encouraged for sustainable development. As?no sustainable economic development happens without a sustainable environment. Researchers and scientists unanimously have serious concerns that fossil resources give rise to a grave hazard to the survival of humans, plants, and animals by the generation of greenhouse gases and CFCs. Judgmentally perceiving the situation, no other reasons are required to justify the significance of the harmless and healthy environment to widespread sustainable development. It is a precondition on which humans and other living things existence depend. Biodegradable biopolymers from research results do not pose such a threat to the environment and its inhabitants compared to fossil-based polymers, and therefore, there is a need for biodegradable biopolymers collectively.?It is suggested?that any global scheme of development created without taking the environment into account will actually be proved fatal.

During the initial stages, the Plastic industry was considered to be a godsend to human beings. Come out as a necessity and a tool that is overused its effect on the atmosphere and the society at large has become domineering.?Since the mass production of plastics began in the 1940s, versatile polymers have spread rapidly across the globe. Although plastics have made life easier in many ways, disposing of the materials became very difficult. ...

The present research stresses the production and criterion of Biofuels derived from plants, such as bioethanol which can be gotten from sugarcane and carbohydrates, and biodiesel also from various plants, kitchen waste inclusive, plants are a prospective source of a much diverse range of useful chemicals and biomaterials. Biopolymers presently occupy a very small but emergent share of the polymer market. Some of these materials have distinctive properties that make them superior, user-friendly, safer to the environment compared to synthetic polymers, especially in medicine, agriculture, engineering, textiles, where biocompatibility and biodegradability are durable assets. Thus, since fossils fuels also destroy agricultural farmlands via spills, reduction or total abandonment and embracing of biopolymers should be encouraged, taking careful consideration of the southern part of Nigeria where petroleum is being drilled, their land is not good at all for agriculture and thus, they have to depend on other parts of the country for a lot of agricultural produce, some animals inclusive because of no available food for farming. Therefore to abolish such environmental complications and to improve the usefulness of biomaterials. It is rightly said that to progress the effectiveness of new biopolymers and production technologies is a necessity and not an option.

The value?of biopolymers requires a critical and objective approach to?address concerns because as biopolymer is evolving, concepts about biopolymers should be explored considering their usage is vital, therefore, Economic concerns must be addressed, because the future of each biopolymer product is solely resting on its cheap?affordability, and society’s ability to pay for it because most of the biopolymers are costly and since petroleum-based polymers are cheaper, industries get aboard on its consumption ignoring the environmental factors but?the income.?Both?developed and developing countries, governments, and NGOs are presenting ingenuities planned to encourage, educate people, and endorse education by giving research grants, providing room for application and adequate development of biopolymers. Most countries all over the world and their policymakers support work in the area of biopolymer research, with governments universally interested e.g. German government being particularly interested.3?This literature review provides information providing awareness and progress made available in the production, application, and development of biodegradable polymer materials and some vital?evidence needed to be discovered about biodegradable materials.

???????HISTORICAL FRAMEWORK

Biopolymers, mainly?latex and cellulose were in use for making rubber and plastics since the mid-1800s. PHA as a carbon and energy storage polymer, whereas PLA is produced from lactic acid that can be biologically derived from lactic acid fermentation.?Fermentation is a metabolic process that produces chemical changes in organic substrates through the action of enzymes. In biochemistry, it is narrowly defined.

?Application of PHA as a plastic started with an effort by the W.R. Grace Company in the 1950s, but most commercial development of bacterial PHA fermentations was accomplished by ICI during the 1960s and 1970s.?The supplication of LCA to PHA making began with self-governing labors at Dartmouth and Monsanto to assess, respectively, the environmental bearings of producing PHA by fermentation and in crop plants.?These studies led to the acknowledgment of processing energy as the primary factor in the environmental impact of PHA production. Polylactic acid polymers were first examined in the 1930s by Caruthers at DuPont. Many researchers investigated polylactic acid and polylactides over the next 50years. Cargill technologically advanced process?for making of lactides and cleansing them with distillation while monitoring the photosensitive structure and cleanliness of the lactides. This permitted Cargill to connect the polymer property variations that various lactide optical properties provide to polylactide polymers.

????????DEGRADATION EFFECTS

Polymer degradation is a change in the properties-tensile strength, color, shape, etc- of a polymer or polymer-based product under the influence of one or more environmental factors such as heat, light, or chemicals. Degradation can also be induced deliberately to assist structure resolution. Polymeric molecules are sizeable?(on the molecular scale), and their novel?and valuable properties are mainly an outcome of their size.?Any loss in chain length lowers tensile strength and is a primary cause of premature cracking. Surgeries are most common in India. Mostly metal plates are kept as the supporting material but now it is replaced by degradable polymer materials. The advantages of this are as follows:

i.????????????????????????????????????Do not require a second surgery for removal;

ii.????????????????????????????????????Avoid stress shielding;

i???????????????????????????????Offer incredible potential as the basis for controlled drug delivery;

.??????????????????USES OF BIODEGRADABLE BIOPOLYMERS

Biopolymers are useful in various areas such as medicine, research, agriculture among others because of their capability to degrade within a short lifespan compared to petroleum-based polymers. Life Cycle Assessment is a tool that can quantify the environmental impacts of biopolymers. However, the environmental impacts associated with the creation, use, and disposal of biopolymers remain unclear, since biopolymers can be made into a variety of products for a variety of uses, and eventually are disposed of in many different ways. One role of LCA practitioners is to identify current production benchmarks and to analyze future scenarios to help guide the development of manufacturing, use, and disposal for sustainable products. The potential benefits of biopolymers in regards to GWP will not be realized until the material and energy demands from the farming and production processes are reduced. The use of RECs in Vink’s 2003 and 2007 studies of PLA determines the power of a low fossil fuel energy pattern united with carbon negative industrial processes.?There is a great potential to seize atmospheric carbon into everyday material. As noted by Gerngross??“any manufacturing process, not just those for plastics, would benefit from the use of renewable energy”.?Life cycle analysis will continue to be a useful tool to identify more sustainable methods of production, use, and disposal of biobased products.

SOME BREAKTHROUGH

A simple processing procedure enables the fabrication of biodegradable protein-based plastics with tunable properties.?Plastics made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource, remain too long in our land and water when discarded," said Rufina Alamo, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering. "We are researching how sustainable polymers are heated and cooled so we may produce more 'environmentally friendly' plastics." Alamo and former doctoral candidate Xiaoshi Zhang, now a postdoctoral research fellow at Penn State, recently published the work in a series of papers that focus on the crystallization of "green" polymers." There is a worldwide motivation to transform how the largest volume of plastics are made," Alamo said. "Polymer chemists and physicists are working hard to produce the best alternative substitute materials to end problematic plastic waste." Defining the correct temperature for processing is key to producing better materials that will help scientists replace inexpensive polymers made from petroleum with economically viable, sustainable polymers." How the polymer is melted and cooled to make the desired shape is important," Alamo said. "We are trying to understand the niceties of crystallization to further understand the revolution process."

The team is studying a type of polymer called "long-spaced polyacetals," which are used in plastics. Synthesized in a laboratory at the University of Konstanz in Germany, the long-spaced polyacetals Alamo's team used come from sustainable biomass. They contain a polyethylene backbone linked with acetal groups at precisely equal distances. The structure combines the toughness of polyethylene with the hydrolytic degradability of the acetal group. This type of polymer is solid but breaks apart more easily with water than traditional polymers." What we discovered is these types of polymers crystalize in an unusual way when cooled after melting," Alamo said." This is a significant discovery because it is an important key to understanding how the plastics we use become solids," she said. "We want to provide the industry with the best transformation processes possible. We want sustainable plastics that don't warp or have difficulty solidifying."

????????THE PROSPECTS OF BIODEGRADABLE POLYMERS NOW AND AHEAD

The impact of petroleum-based polymers is a serious issue to be addressed considering?its severe negative impact on health, environment, and economy, this stimulates researchers and industries into the arena?of biopolymer research. Thus, as a result of the unexpected outcomes of petroleum-based products, research institutes and universities has plastic departments, e.g. Queen Mary University in London England has a plastics department that is actively working on biocomposite development.?The more the biopolymer industry is well invested into universally and it grows, issues with production, price, and quality have to be worked out since constant research on better alternatives are in progress, and also nano polymer and biocomposites are still under research.?Multilayer films containing starch and/or natural fibers’ are inclined to have adhesion complications and thus natural fibers are also considered as alternatives for underpinning matrices.?Standards organizations such as the ASTM and ISO among others have issued methods for material tests on biodegradable plastic materials in order to have environmentally friendly and cost-effective biopolymer materials for sustainable development. Considering the nature, scope, and characteristics of natural materials, there are expediencies to give, consideration, and due observation than to synthetic materials. Thus, the biopolymer industry has a great positive future, which is driven mainly by the environmental and economic benefits of using natural resources for the production of biomaterials.

?ENVIRONMENTAL FRIENDLY POLYMER MATERIALS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

??????????Environmental friendly polymers contain polymers or their composites which are either biodegradable or biobased (from renewable resources). Their carbon-neutral lifecycle may reduce the emission of carbon dioxide and the dependence on petroleum-based materials and then reduce the human footprint on the environment. In fact, significant achievements in this field have been obtained Environmentally friendly materials are among the most important materials because of the increasing environmental issues and depletion of petroleum oil. It is definitely necessary for both academics and industry to develop environmentally friendly polymers materials or “green materials.” The by chemists, physicists, and engineers who have recognized the importance of developing environmentally responsible materials.

In order to reduce the white pollution caused by non-biodegradable waste plastic packaging materials, in the paper entitled “Ingredient of biomass packaging material and compare study on cushion properties,” F. Li reported one biomass cushion packaging material with straw fiber and starch. With the optimized ingredient, the compressive strength can reach 0.94 MPa. The biomass cushion packaging material can be an ideal substitute for plastic packaging materials such as EPS and EPE. In the paper entitled “Potential of cellulose-based superabsorbent hydrogels as a water reservoir in agriculture,” C. Demitri developed a biodegradable superabsorbent hydrogel based on cellulose derivatives for the optimization of water resources. In the paper entitled “A nitrocellulose polypyrene composite based on tunicate cellulose,” D. Zhang et al. reported the production of a new functional material that exploits the inherent properties of tunicate cellulose (TC) from natural products by a combination of the good electrical conductivity of polypyrene (PPY). The material showed many excellent properties including high tensile strength, toughness, biocompatibility, high surface areas of the TC, and electronic and chemical properties of PPY.

???????????CONCLUSION

Environmental sustainability is continually growing in status to individuals, the environment, and industries among others collectively. Therefore, regulatory bodies such as ASTM among others should provide laid down policies leading the production and use of biodegradable. We trust that with the great efforts of Researchers and Scientists will hopefully invent a bridgeable product as?it is the question of survival of humankind.

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