[AVX Seminar] Towards a More Sustainable Future: High-Value Chemicals, Polymers and Materials from renewable resources
Armando Domingues Silvestre, CICECO, Universidade de Aveiro
| When |
14 Jul, 2016
from
11:00 am to 12:00 pm |
|---|---|
| Where | Auditorium |
| Add event to your calendar |
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AVX Seminar
Title: Towards a More Sustainable Future: High-Value Chemicals, Polymers and Materials from renewable resources
Speaker: Armando Domingues Silvestre
Host: Prof. Margarida Oliveira
Affiliation: CICECO, Universidade de Aveiro
Abstract: Towards a More Sustainable Future: High-Value Chemicals, Polymers and Materials from renewable resources
In the last two decades there has been an increasing interest in the development of renewable alternatives to fulfill society needs of chemicals, polymers and materials, tackling the inevitable dwindling of fossil resources and the environmental problems associated with their massive consumption. The biorefinery concept, adressing the integrated and rational exploitation of biomass to acheive this goal is therefore a transdisciplinary field of resarch that has grown enourmously in the last decades.
Given our previous experince in the agro-forest biomass chemistry and processing, in the last decade our group has been intensively working in several domains of this global challenge, notably in the extraction and upgrading of high-value components from biomass, in the production of biobased polymeric materials, and functional (nano)materials, with an overarhching search for eco-friendly and sustainable processes.
Examples of extraction and upgrading of biomass components include the extraction of triperpenic acids from eucalyptus and oak cork, and the development of new methods for suberin extraction and valorization.
The production of poly(ethylene furandicarboxylate) and related polyesters- renewable analogs to the fossil based therephthalic acid counterparts, is among the most promising activities in the polymer chemistry domains.
Finally we have been intensively working in the development of (nano)celulose based functional composites with a wide panoply of natural and synthetic polymers, with applications spaning from biomedical domains to proton exchange fuel cells, passing through films for transparent electronics.
A general overview of the resarch activities of the group with some cutting edge examples will be put forward during this presentation.
