unique solution to plastic pollution.

Teysha’s natural product polycarbonate platform creates a wide range of polymers with tunable properties and practical applications to meet the growing demand for sustainable plastics. The platform invention provides the design of synthetic strategies for the development of polymer materials that originate from renewable resources, exhibit novel combinations of strength and toughness, as well as undergo hydrolytic breakdown to biologically beneficial by-products.

Teysha’s platform invention provides the design of synthetic strategies for the development of polymer materials that originate from renewable resources, exhibit novel combinations of strength and toughness, as well as undergo hydrolytic breakdown to biologically-beneficial by-products. The innovation presents a specific application of the inventor’s green polycarbonates platform to develop environmentally friendly polycarbonate materials through scalable synthesis processes.

Polyhydroxyl natural products are used as the monomeric building blocks and carbonates, found in common engineering materials, as the linkages. Two classes of polyhydroxyl natural monomers, saccharides and quinic acid, have been tested for the construction of polycarbonates. The transformations of the two natural products can produce a wide range of linear and hyperbranched polymers and copolymers. In one aspect, the invention provides optimisable compositions, structures and architectures of the polycarbonate materials with desired properties to persist in the environment for a useful period of time. In another aspect, the materials can undergo selective degradation into non-harmful substances when exposed to specific natural conditions for a prolonged period of time.

The materials are an environmentally friendly alternative to petroleum-based polycarbonate plastics, such as those used in packaging, automotive interior and exterior molding, medical equipment and construction sectors.