biopolymer

English

Etymology

From bio- +‎ polymer.

Noun

biopolymer (plural biopolymers)

1. (biochemistry) Any macromolecule of a living organism that is formed from the polymerization of smaller entities; a polymer that occurs in a living organism or results from life.

   Hypernyms: polymer; biomolecule; macromolecule; molecule; compound

   Hyponyms: polynucleotide, polypeptide, polysaccharide; nucleic acid, NA, RNA, DNA; protein; starch, glycogen; cellulose, lignin

   Coordinate term: biometal

   There are three main classes of biopolymers: polynucleotides (such as RNA and DNA), polypeptides (such as collagen and actin), and polysaccharides (such as cellulose and starch).

   • 2007 March 21, Susan Moran, “The new bioplastics, more than just forks”, in The New York Times‎:

     Products based on durable biopolymers have begun appearing in the marketplace.

   • 2023 June 29, Mike Edwards, “Collaboration leads to eco-friendly straw made with polyhydroxyalkanoate”, in CPECN‎:

     CJ Biomaterials was the first company in the world to produce amorphous PHA, it says, which is a softer, rubberier version of PHA that offers fundamentally different performance characteristics than crystalline or semi-crystalline forms of the biopolymer.

Derived terms

• nanobiopolymer

Translations

polymer that occurs in a living organism

Chinese: Mandarin: 生物聚合物 Finnish: biopolymeeri French: biopolymère (fr) m Polish: biopolimer m

See also

• multimer
• oligomer

Further reading

• biopolymer on Wikipedia.Wikipedia