Stefania Bertella
Surfactants are a class of amphiphilic compounds which are essential in various industrial applications, as they can aid in the formation of emulsions, dispersion or act as wetting agents.(1) Despite their wide use, only less than 5% of the current surfactant market share consists of compounds entirely derived from plant wastes and renewable carbon. Lignin, […]
3.1 Prehydrolysis liquors valorized to a flame-retardant coating
The production of dissolving grade pulp necessitates the removal of hemicellulose from biomass. The resulting prehydrolysis liquors are currently incinerated at low efficiency, hampering pulp production. Herein, the preparation and characterization of a polymer synthesized from hemicellulose derived monomers is described, offering an alternative to incineration. The polymer was prepared without solvent at room temperature, […]
14.7 A Comparative Study on the Microscopic Mechanisms of Cellulose Dissolution by Sodium Hydroxide and Benzyltrimethyl Ammonium Hydroxide
Dissolving cellulose is crucial for sustainable materials development. Aqueous alkaline solutions offer economic and potential environmental advantages, but a deep understanding of their dissolution mechanism is needed for designing efficient, green technologies. Previous work often focused on hydrogen bond disruption, neglecting specific ionic roles. This study elucidates the critical functions of anionic hydroxide deprotonation, cation […]
12.Keynote – Directed evolution of material-producing bacteria
Engineers often use high temperatures, pressures and polluting chemicals to make synthetic materials. By contrast, biology produces remarkable materials like wood and bone using widely available chemical resources in water and at ambient temperature. The ability of organisms to create materials under such mild processing conditions relies on the intricate biological machinery of living cells. […]
12.Invited – Biocatalytic production of solar chemicals and fuels by photosynthetic cell factories
Photosynthetic organisms convert sunlight, CO₂, water, and mineral nutrients into energy-rich organic compounds and oxygen, forming the foundation of life on Earth. Beyond their natural role, algae and cyanobacteria can be harnessed for the sustainable production of valuable biochemicals. These organisms can host synthetic metabolic pathways and enzymes, enabling them to act as microbial cell […]
14.Invited – A hierarchical multiscale modeling framework for wood-based materials
Wood-based materials encompass a broad range of products, including engineered wood, pulp and paper products as well as biocomposites derived from cellulose. These materials are attractive in many ways but the predictability of their properties is obstructed by their complex and hierarchical material structure with features on several length scales that affect the properties, for […]
14.Keynote – Structures and diffraction patterns for cellulose I beta unit cells with different dimensions, optimized with DFT-3D
Diffraction indicates varied cellulose Iβ unit cell dimensions. Reasons include relatively weak van der Waals forces along the unit cell a-axis and varying crystallite dimensions. Although a crystal structure is available for large-crystal tunicate cellulose , there is less information about commercial cellulose structures with smaller crystallites. This is a problem for application of the […]
2.Keynote – Approaches for useful lignin from hydrolysis residue
Hydrolysis residue is the biomass components remaining after pretreatment and saccharification and the utilization of this material impacts the economics of a biorefinery. This material typically has a high lignin content, dependent upon the pretreatment method. Steam-explosion significantly disrupts the cell wall from the autocatalyzed breakage of lignin and carbohydrate linkages allowing lignin to rearrange […]
3.Keynote – Sustainable polyesters and resin components: combining bio-based resources with function integration
The incorporation of biobased monomers into polymer structures offers the possibility to develop materials in a more climate-friendly way. By using biogenic monomers, the carbon footprint of polymer production can be reduced. In the recent years we have developed thermoplastic and duroplastic polymer materials with specific biobased units for integrating specific functions. An example will […]
3.Invited – Synthetic carbohydrate polymers from xylose and other natural sugars: design, polymerisation and applications
In the context of the defossilisation of the chemical industry, our team has been investigating the incorporation of monosaccharides into synthetic polymer backbones. The goal of this research is to create renewable materials with attractive sustainability attributes (e.g., degradability, chemical recyclability), and which are tuneable thanks to the functionalisation potential of sugar moieties. This talk will […]
