A recent work highlights the use of natural, renewable polyfunctional macromolecules, integrated in the plastic by photo-crosslinking to obtain improved thermoset materials
As a result of a long-standing collaboration between Prof. Arjan W. Kleij’s group and the ICIQ’s Knowledge and Technology Transfer (ICIQ-KTT) department, ICIQ reports the production of novel bioplastics. The system works by adding plant-based macromolecules in a photopolymerization process that enable the formation of materials for different applications, and which exhibit superior mechanical and thermal properties compared to their parent materials.
The paper, published in Polymer Chemistry (RSC), presents a family of new hybrid materials prepared by a practical and straightforward photo-crosslinking approach. This work demonstrates the potential of biobased polycarbonates as possible drop-in additives towards the creation of more sustainable thermoset materials.
The objective of the researchers involved in this work was to realize the successful preparation of more sustainable bioplastics in comparison with the existing 100% petroleum-based ones.
The importance of the work also is the combination of pure fundamental insights with practical aspects of polymer development, making this collaboration a thriving one, and with more exciting results coming up soon.
Prof. Arjan W. Kleij
Plastics to fight climate change?
The hybrid and tuneable materials presented in Polymer Chemistry paper contain different degrees of biobased content. (Partially) biomass-based raw materials can replace or reduce the utilization of the traditional petroleum-based polymers highlighting an important opportunity in the field of sustainable chemistry. A lower dependence on petroleum-based chemicals can favourably affect the overall carbon footprint of polymers and materials derived from them.
Plastic materials combine a plethora of properties that render them of great use in every-day life and in industrial applications. If such materials can be forged with significantly reduced carbon footprints compared to fossil-fuel derived ones, they will undoubtedly create a great deal of interest from both academic and industrial laboratories.
Tougher environmental regulations will push the adoption of more sustainable alternatives to current fossil-fuel based plastics, but the market will only accept those products that perform at least as well as the non-sustainable counterpart. The new materials provided by ICIQ contribute to reduce the carbon footprint by incorporating plant-based materials and CO2 within their structure, but, furthermore, they have shown to have improved thermomechanical performance.
Dr. Fernando Bravo, Manager at ICIQ-KTT and Industrial Projects unit
The authors thank the Cerca Program/Generalitat de Catalunya, ICREA, MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 (PID2020-112684GB-100 and Severo Ochoa Excellence Accreditation 2020–2024 CEX2019-000925-S) and AGAUR (2021-SGR-00853) for support. This work has further received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 801342 (Tecniospring INDUSTRY) and the Government of Catalonia’s Agency for Business Competitiveness (ACCIÓ: COMBILOOP, ACE026/21/000087).
Reference publication
Improved thermoset materials derived from biobased terpene macromolecules via photo-crosslinking
Skoulas, D.; Bravo, F.; Kleij, A. W.
Polym. Chem. 2024, DOI: 10.1039/D4PY00381K