Biomacromolecule Engineering by Soft Chain Coupling Technology

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is seeking a commercialization partner for a Biomacromolecule Engineering by Soft Chain Coupling Technology (BEST). ORNL Office of Technology Transfer is now accepting licensing applications through March 13, 2020. Problem: Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is the most widely used bioplastic today. Its biodegradability, biocompatibility, high strength, and stiffness as a commodity polymer make PLA one of the most promising bioplastics under development. Its many application areas include but are not limited to biomedical devices, biodegradable films and packages, and 3D printing. However, PLA’s brittle nature is a major barrier to its adoption in much wider application areas. Solution: The BEST approach dramatically improves the ductility and toughness of PLA via a novel industry-friendly soft-coupling technology based on small droplets and chain end/tail modification. This technology is realized by a scalable, environmentally friendly process that uses only nontoxic additives and a melt-phase process to achieve the desired droplet-in-polymer microstructures, referred to as polymer–droplet composite. The droplets work as a unique topological modifier to manage the topological defects of chain entanglement networks. As a result, with minimal loading of modifiers (<1.5 wt%), the modified PLA offers significant improvements in toughness as well as processability without sacrificing the material’s mechanical strength. Impact: The production capacity of the biobased-polymer industry is projected to triple, from 3.5 million tons in 2011 to nearly 12 million tons in 2020. As the fastest-growing segment of this market, PLA is expected to account for over $6.5 billion because of its use in packaging, biomedical devices, composites, additive manufacturing, and other areas. Overcoming the issue of brittleness without sacrificing other valuable mechanical properties would revolutionize the already rapidly growing PLA industry. Improvements in mechanical performance would not only extend existing markets, but also enable new applications such as films and packages and penetration into new polymer markets. The new materials derived using the BEST approach exhibit outstanding mechanical toughness and processability, which are of great value for its broad applications.