Campus Units

Chemical and Biological Engineering

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Accepted Manuscript

Publication Date

2-27-2021

Journal or Book Title

Polymer International

DOI

10.1002/pi.6209

Abstract

Glycerol, a water‐soluble polyol, is currently used in a wide variety of markets, e.g., as a sweetener in drinks, as an additive in the food and cosmetic industry, or as an antifreeze agent, to name a few. The blooming biodiesel production has created an excess supply of glycerol by‐product. Researchers all around the world are actively exploring strategies to utilize this cheap and abundantly available biobased molecule. To date, glycerol‐based polymers have only been examined extensively for use in biomedical applications, however, the use of biobased crude glycerol is nonviable for such applications due to the presence of impurities such as methanol and residual fatty acids from the biodiesel production process. Thankfully, the increased volumes of glycerol generated from biodiesel production have stimulated the research on its use in various other industrial applications such as the production of commodity chemicals, polymers, etc. In this article, we summarize some of the efforts to valorize glycerol for polymeric applications such as polyurethanes, polyhydroxyalkanoates, and adhesives.

Comments

This is the peer-reviewed version of the following article: Goyal, Shailja, Nacú B. Hernández, and Eric Cochran. "An update on the future prospects of Glycerol Polymers." Polymer International, which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1002/pi.6209. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving. Posted with permission.

Copyright Owner

Society of Chemical Industry

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

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