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Microbial 1,3-Propanediol, Its Copolymerization with Terephthalate, and Applications

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Plastics from Bacteria

Part of the book series: Microbiology Monographs ((MICROMONO,volume 14))

Abstract

Poly(trimethylene terephthalate) (PTT) fibers, as a new type of polyester, are characterized by much better resilience and stress/recovery properties than poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and poly(butylene terephthalate) (PBT). PPT chains are much more angularly structured than PET and PBT chains and such chains can be stretched by up to 15% with a reversible recovery (Ward et al. 1976).These properties make PTT highly suitable for uses in fiber, carpet, textile, film, and engineering thermoplastics applications. 1,3-Propanediol (PDO), as one of the polyester raw materials for PTT, has also attracted interest.

In the 1990s three technical processes for the production of PDO were developed. The first process used acrolein, and was developed by Degussa-Hüls; this technology was sold to DuPont in 1997. The second was developed by Shell with ethylene oxide as the substrate. These two processes are all classic chemical processes. Recently, the biological process of PDO production with glycerol or glucose as raw materials in one or two steps has been considered as a competitor to the traditional petrochemical routes. It has advantages such as mild reaction conditions, good selectivity of product, environmental friendliness, and use of a renewable feedstock. With the development of biotechnology, especially gene manipulation technology, microbial PDO has prospects for the production of PTT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Green Chemistry and Technology Division, Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Hongjuan Liu

  2. Department of Chemistry Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Xianjin Ou, Sheng Zhou & Dehua Liu

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  1. Hongjuan Liu
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  2. Xianjin Ou
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  3. Sheng Zhou
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  4. Dehua Liu
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Correspondence to Dehua Liu .

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  1. Dept. Biological Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China, People's Republic

    George Guo-Qiang Chen

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Liu, H., Ou, X., Zhou, S., Liu, D. (2010). Microbial 1,3-Propanediol, Its Copolymerization with Terephthalate, and Applications. In: Chen, GQ. (eds) Plastics from Bacteria. Microbiology Monographs, vol 14. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03287-5_16

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