Green material solutions are instrumental in our collective pursuit of a more sustainable society. The bio-based origin is central; however, if this does not connect to circularity and benign synthesis, we will face the same plastic waste problem as today. My research team is highly interdisciplinary, covering polymer, organic, and biopolymer chemistry, with a focus on the challenges we need to solve for specific material applications. This presentation focuses on my team’s recent work in polymer synthetic methodology development within the framework of biobased circular polymeric materials.Our methodology is based on identifying the constraints and chemical challenges of a specific problem and using that as a blueprint for the desired chemistry we need to develop. We have a keen interest in addressing fundamental questions, developing new chemistry, and using biopolymers from the forest.Recent examples of our work include:
• Strategic Reaction System Design during Heterogenous Cellulose Modification.1• Development of modular polymerization strategies.2• Oxime-ligation towards the reversible covalent functionalization of cellulose nanomaterials in water.3• Super-charged wood fibres via radical transfer polymerization.4
Central to this work is to harness the complexity of natural resources on many different hierarchical levels, combine that with polymer chemistry and play with factors such as chemical accessibility, reactivity, and orthogonality.