Sustainable Processes to Multifunctional Bioplastics and Biocomposites

A special issue of Macromol (ISSN 2673-6209).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 November 2024 | Viewed by 1479

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Organic and Inorganic Chemistry, Institute of Chemical Research “Andrés M. del Río” (IQAR), Universidad de Alcalá, Campus Universitario, 28871 Madrid, Spain
Interests: stimuli-responsive polymers; bioplastics; bionanocomposites; smart energy; smart materials; shape-memory polymers; piezoelectric effect; catalysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Multifunctional bioplastics and biocomposites can be produced using sustainable processes to minimize the impact on the environment. These processes include using renewable raw materials such as agricultural and forest residues, as well as adding additives to enhance biodegradability. Catalytic processes aimed at the synthesis of bioplastics and biocomposites are a subject of great interest, followed by companies in the plastics sector. Obtaining catalysts that allow these reactions to be carried out in a more efficient and selective manner results in economic benefits for the companies, since the consumption of material and energy resources can be drastically reduced. Furthermore, recycling and upcycling bioplastics and biocomposites can create new products, reduce waste, and provide natural sources of nutrients for plants. Moreover, reactive extrusion is a promising cost- and time-effective, sustainable, solvent-free and scalable industrial method for the production of bioplastics and biocomposites manufacture. This Special Issue aims to summarize innovative sustainable strategies to obtain multifunctional bioplastics and biocomposites, as well as their emerging application and different approaches that are able to offer the potential circularity of these materials.

Dr. Valentina Sessini
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • catalysis
  • green processing
  • reactive extrusion
  • natural polymers
  • biobased polymers
  • biodegradable polymers
  • circular economy
  • recycling
  • depolymerization
  • smart materials

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 2887 KiB  
Article
Recycling of Wood–Plastic Composites—A Reprocessing Study
by Christoph Burgstaller and Károly Renner
Macromol 2023, 3(4), 754-765; https://doi.org/10.3390/macromol3040043 - 02 Nov 2023
Viewed by 1120
Abstract
Wood–plastic composites, consisting of wood particles and a thermoplastic matrix, are common composites often used in buildings as decking boards or for similar non-load-carrying applications. As these are usually semi-finished products, a certain amount of material is available after cutting these to size, [...] Read more.
Wood–plastic composites, consisting of wood particles and a thermoplastic matrix, are common composites often used in buildings as decking boards or for similar non-load-carrying applications. As these are usually semi-finished products, a certain amount of material is available after cutting these to size, in the factory and also at installation sites. Especially for in-house waste streams in factories, the question remains whether these materials can be reprocessed without any negative influence on the materials’ properties. Therefore, the aim of this work is to investigate the influence of reprocessing on the property profile of polypropylene based wood–plastic composites. Two base formulations with 40 wt% of wood particles and two different polypropylene grades were investigated for their mechanical properties, wood particle size, color, weathering stability and water uptake. We found that most of the wood–plastic composites’ properties were not negatively influenced by the multiple processing steps; the most pronounced effect beside particle size reduction is color degradation, as the composites darken with increasing number of processing steps. In our opinion this shows, that wood–plastic composites can be recycled, especially if these are only reprocessed in smaller shares together with virgin materials. Full article
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