Plant-inspired building blocks for future plastics.

Abstract

The transition from a linear fossil-based economy to a renewable circular economy requires a new approach to produce building blocks for plastics. This provides opportunities to reshape the plastic landscape and will positively impact the wide range of applications that make use of plastics. We propose that plant enzymes, which underlie the large biochemical diversity present in plant specialized metabolism, will facilitate the production of novel building blocks for new polymers via biotechnological processes. Thereby, plant-inspired plastic building blocks may enable the development of new plastics for targeted applications that can contribute to a future with renewable plastics.