Green Chemistry & Sustainable Materials

Green chemistry , also called sustainable chemistry, is described as the design of products and processes to minimize or eliminate their intrinsic hazard. The most challenges of Green chemistry are the chemical synthesis and molecular design in such a way to reduce adverse consequences. There are some “design rules” that help chemists to design new products with positive impact on the human health and environment. The Green chemistry approach has been applied to different research areas and industry sectors such as energy, pharmaceutical, electronics and so on. Among these research areas, we focus on the i) development of sustainable, eco-efficient and competitive production methods of polymeric materials. Our strategy towards biobased polymeric materials comprises modification of natural biopolymers (e.g. starch, cellulose) and green polymerization strategies (e.g. biocatalysis, using green solvents) of biobased monomers into thermoplastic and thermosetting (high performance) polymers; ii) development of novel catalytic chemistry and reactor concepts (among others microreactors, centrifugal contactor separator devices) for catalytic processes with a strong emphasis on the conversion of (lignocellulosic) biomass to energy, biofuels and biobased (performance) chemicals; iii) next generation sequencing of bacterial DNA to determine the drinking water quality in distribution networks and performance of purification plants; iv) development of robust and efficient processes for biogas production from concentrated and diluted waste water using a 96‑microreactor screening platform.