Sustainable polymers and materials from renewable resources have become more and more important within the past years, and their development is gaining increasing interest for two main reasons: first, this approach enables an independence from the limited fossil-based resources. As though the main part of fossil oil is still used for energy generation, the question raises how we need new carbon sources for materials. Here, the second reason is that nature can provide a variety of new and structurally significant polymers and also monomeric (molecular) building blocks that cannot be obtained so easily via fossil-based pathways. These compounds can thus bring new properties and features into the polymers and materials. Based on this "molecular approach", in these studies a variety of new biopolymers based on terpenes - a large and diverse class of natural compounds - was developed, characterized and applied. For instance, polyamides with new prosperous and improved property profiles could be obtained.
While suchlike biopolymers are mainly defined as biogenic, biobased and/or biodegradable polymers, the term 'biomaterials' means that the materials are biocompatible and that they can be applied in medicine for therapeutic, regenerative or diagnostic purposes in direct contact with biological tissue. In this context, within these studies also new biomaterials based on polyamides and polyesters were prepared and investigated with regards to cell-material interactions.
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Sustainable polymers and materials from renewable resources have become more and more important within the past years, and their development is gaining increasing interest for two main reasons: first, this approach enables an independence from the limited fossil-based resources. As though the main part of fossil oil is still used for energy generation, the question raises how we need new carbon sources for materials. Here, the second reason is that nature can provide a variety of new and structu...
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