Biobased Polyamides: A Journey from the Biomass towards Cutting Edge Materials

Biobased polyamides (PAs) are sustainable polymers derived from renewable feedstock, such as biomass, offering a promising alternative to petroleum-based materials. This shift enables more environmentally friendly materials, with reduced carbon footprints and helps address the growing challenge of plastic waste recycling. Since the introduction of fossil-based PAs like Nylon in the 1930s, PAs have played an increasingly important role in various industries, including automotive, textiles, electronics, and packaging. Today, research focuses on biobased alternatives that not only meet sustainability criteria, but also present unique molecular structures derived from natural monomers. These include natural lignin, which provides aromatic building blocks, terpenes or fatty acids, which offer functional diversity and chain flexibility. These monomers have enabled the synthesis of biobased PAs with excellent thermal, mechanical, and barrier properties. Many of these materials exhibit high crystallinity, good chemical resistance, and tunable mechanical strength. Among the most promising biobased variants are furan-based PAs, because of the rigid, planar furan ring and its polar oxygen-rich structure. In this context, this review aims to highlight the advances in the synthesis of biobased PAs, emphasizing the excellent properties of some of them. Indeed, in some cases, biobased PAs exhibit properties comparable to their fossil-based counterparts, with the significant environmental advantage of a much lower carbon footprint.