Journal of Chemical Engineering & Process Technology
Open Access
ISSN: 2157-7048
+44-77-2385-9429
ISSN: 2157-7048
+44-77-2385-9429
Tatsuo Kaneko
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Japan
Keynote: J Chem Eng Process Technol
Transparent plastics such as polycarbonates and polymethylmethacrylate are expected to replace from glass materials but their
thermomechanical performances were too low to apply in wide fields of electronics and optics. Actually most of strong plastics like
glasses are partially crystallized to reduce the transparency. In order to solve the dilemma, we have tried to prepare new amorphous
bioplastics comprising rigid aromatic backbones (T. Kaneko et al. Nature Mater. 5, 966 (2006). Here we report 4-aminocinnamic acid
(4ACA) which was bioavailable by a microorganismal engineering. The photodimer of 4ACA was prepared via [2+2] cycloaddition,
which is a kind of biological dianilines. The dianilines were indispensable for preparation of the aromatic polyamide and polyimide
but generally were very difficult to produce by a direct method of fermentation. The biodianilines were polymerized with diacids
to produce aromatic polyamides and with tetraacid dianhydrides to produce aromatic polyimides. Especially the polyimides
derived from the photodimer and cyclobutanetetracarboxylic dianhydrides showed a good thermomechanical performance, and
additionally showed a high transparency. Besides we synthesized acetylated 4ACA photodimer as a bio-derived diacid, and then
the diacid was polycondensed with the dianilines to produce new biopolyamides with truxillamide backbone comprising rigid
phenylenes and their connecting cyclobutanes. Cyclobutanes sandwiched by two phenylene rings can behave as a molecular spring
and rigid structure as a result of tautomerization, The molecular spring produced ultra-strong and transparent polyamides having
higher mechanical strength than heavy materials such as glasses (Kaneko, T. et al. Macromolecules 47, 1586 (2014); Macromolecules
49, 3336 (2016). This works were financially supported by ALCA, JST.
Recent Publications:
1. â??Bio-based polyimides from 4-aminocinnamic acid photodimerâ?, P. Suvannasara, S. Tateyama, A. Miyasato, K.
Matsumura, T. Shimoda, N. Takaya, T. Kaneko, et al. Macromolecules, 47 (2014) 1586.
2. â??Ionic state and chain conformation for aqueous solutions of supergiant cyanobacterial polysaccharideâ?, T. Mitsumata,
T. Miura, N. Takahashi, M. Kawai, M. Okajima, and T. Kaneko, Phys. Rev. E,ã??87 (2013) 042607.
3. â??Hyperbranching Polycoumarates with Photofunctional Multiple Shape-Memoryâ?, S. Wang, D. Kaneko, M. Okajima,
K. Yasaki, S. Tateyama, and T. Kaneko, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 52 (2013) 11143.
4. â??Hydrotalcites catalyze the acidolysis polymerization of phenolic acid to create highly heat-resistant bioplasticsâ?, M.
Chauzar, S. Tateyama, K. Ebitani, T. Kaneko, et al. Adv. Funct. Mater. 22 (2012) 3438.
5. â??Environmentally-Degradable, High-performance Plastics from Phenolic Phytomonomersâ?, T. Kaneko, et al. Nature
Mater. 5 (2006) 966.
Tatsuo Kaneko has completed his Ph.D at the age of 27 years from Tokyo Tech and Assiss. Prof. studies in 3 universities including Osaka Univ. He also joined the Bioengineering Department at UCLA as a Visit Assoc Prof in 2012. He is a full professor and the head of excellent core research center in the current affiliation, JAIST. Current research interests include gels, liquid crystals, engineering plastics, and biomaterials, for which he has published 150 papers in reputed journals and received several awards such as “Gottfried Wagener prize” The 9th German Innovation Award.
Email: kaneko@jaist.ac.jp