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> This new type of polycarbonate can be biodegraded back into carbon dioxide and sugar using enzymes from soil bacteria This sounds amazing, but reading about

> This new type of polycarbonate can be biodegraded back into carbon dioxide and sugar using enzymes from soil bacteria This sounds amazing, but reading about various awesome breakthroughs has made me a bit cynical since there always is some sort of catch. Does anyone know any limitations to this method which would make it difficult to scale?

deleted 9y ago
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Analemma_ 9y ago
If there are any, they'd probably be discussed in the actual papers and not here. I don't know if the UK is better, but at least in the US, university press releases about this or that research paper are usually garbage. Does anyone have access to the actual papers? Georgina L. Gregory, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn and Antoine Buchard “Polymers from sugars and CO2: ring-opening polymerisation and copolymerisation of cyclic carbonates derived from 2-deoxy-D-ribose” DOI: 10.1039/C7PY00236J Polymer Chemistry, 2017, 8, 2093-2104 Georgina L. Gregory, Elizabeth M. Hierons, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn, Ram I. Sharma and Antoine Buchard “CO2-Driven stereochemical inversion of sugars to create thymidine-based polycarbonates by ring-opening polymerisation” DOI: 10.1039/C7PY00118E Polymer Chemistry, 2017, 8, 1714-1721 Georgina L. Gregory, Liliana M. Jenisch, Bethan Charles, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn, and Antoine Buchard “Polymers from Sugars and CO2: Synthesis and Polymerization of a d-Mannose-Based Cyclic Carbonate” DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.6b01492 Macromolecules, 2016, 49, 7165-7169
- asdfghj123 9y ago
  https://sci-hub.io/10.1039/C7PY00236J https://sci-hub.io/10.1039/C7PY00236J https://sci-hub.io/10.1039/C7PY00118E https://sci-hub.io/10.1039/C7PY00118E https://sci-hub.io/10.1021/acs.macromol.6b01492 https://sci-hub.io/10.1021/acs.macromol.6b01492
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sndean 9y ago
  They're on Sci-Hub, for the desperate. But, just glancing at them, they look legitimate. ACS especially doesn't accept low quality stuff (including some of my own work..)
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  If there are limitations to scaling, they'll probably not spell them out in the papers either. It's unfortunate, but "negative" aspects of one's own results are strongly suppressed in scientific publishing. And I'm not in any way pointing the finger at these particular authors, I'm pretty sure they're excellent scientists, it's just a problem in general. I had a look around, and the papers aren't on any preprint servers etc. I guess we could violate copyrights, but a better solution might be that someone emails George and asks if she can get the preprints posted somewhere. Edit: there's a preprint of the 2015 paper here: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/44557/ http://opus.bath.ac.uk/44557/
azernik 9y ago
My guess? Energy usage. One reason why crude oil, a fuel source, is also such a good chemical feedstock is that it contains a lot of complex, high-energy hydrocarbons. These are the kinds of complicated molecules that require a lot of energy input to form, and hence release lots of energy when burned. Reversing this process and turning simple carbohydrates plus carbon dioxide into complex carbohydrates is usually a highly endothermic reaction.
- ryanmarsh 9y ago
  Which is why the use of the word "sustainable" here is suspect. Sustainable in that one day we will run out of oil? Yes. Sustainable in that the inputs do not exceed the outputs? That remains to be seen.
shanev 9y ago
One limitation I see is the dependence on soil bacteria. We are already losing soil at alarming rate due to industrial farming. In the coming years it's going to be even more of a scarce resource.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Analemma_ 9y ago

If there are any, they'd probably be discussed in the actual papers and not here. I don't know if the UK is better, but at least in the US, university press releases about this or that research paper are usually garbage. Does anyone have access to the actual papers? Georgina L. Gregory, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn and Antoine Buchard “Polymers from sugars and CO2: ring-opening polymerisation and copolymerisation of cyclic carbonates derived from 2-deoxy-D-ribose” DOI: 10.1039/C7PY00236J Polymer Chemistry, 2017, 8, 2093-2104 Georgina L. Gregory, Elizabeth M. Hierons, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn, Ram I. Sharma and Antoine Buchard “CO2-Driven stereochemical inversion of sugars to create thymidine-based polycarbonates by ring-opening polymerisation” DOI: 10.1039/C7PY00118E Polymer Chemistry, 2017, 8, 1714-1721 Georgina L. Gregory, Liliana M. Jenisch, Bethan Charles, Gabriele Kociok-Köhn, and Antoine Buchard “Polymers from Sugars and CO2: Synthesis and Polymerization of a d-Mannose-Based Cyclic Carbonate” DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.6b01492 Macromolecules, 2016, 49, 7165-7169

asdfghj123 9y ago
https://sci-hub.io/10.1039/C7PY00236J https://sci-hub.io/10.1039/C7PY00236J https://sci-hub.io/10.1039/C7PY00118E https://sci-hub.io/10.1039/C7PY00118E https://sci-hub.io/10.1021/acs.macromol.6b01492 https://sci-hub.io/10.1021/acs.macromol.6b01492
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sndean 9y ago
They're on Sci-Hub, for the desperate. But, just glancing at them, they look legitimate. ACS especially doesn't accept low quality stuff (including some of my own work..)
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
If there are limitations to scaling, they'll probably not spell them out in the papers either. It's unfortunate, but "negative" aspects of one's own results are strongly suppressed in scientific publishing. And I'm not in any way pointing the finger at these particular authors, I'm pretty sure they're excellent scientists, it's just a problem in general. I had a look around, and the papers aren't on any preprint servers etc. I guess we could violate copyrights, but a better solution might be that someone emails George and asks if she can get the preprints posted somewhere. Edit: there's a preprint of the 2015 paper here: http://opus.bath.ac.uk/44557/ http://opus.bath.ac.uk/44557/

azernik 9y ago

My guess? Energy usage. One reason why crude oil, a fuel source, is also such a good chemical feedstock is that it contains a lot of complex, high-energy hydrocarbons. These are the kinds of complicated molecules that require a lot of energy input to form, and hence release lots of energy when burned. Reversing this process and turning simple carbohydrates plus carbon dioxide into complex carbohydrates is usually a highly endothermic reaction.

ryanmarsh 9y ago
Which is why the use of the word "sustainable" here is suspect. Sustainable in that one day we will run out of oil? Yes. Sustainable in that the inputs do not exceed the outputs? That remains to be seen.

shanev 9y ago

One limitation I see is the dependence on soil bacteria. We are already losing soil at alarming rate due to industrial farming. In the coming years it's going to be even more of a scarce resource.