Speakers

DAY 1: Renewable resources for more circular plastics

Karolien Vanbroekhoven is research manager in VITO in the field of sustainable chemistry and materials. Currently she manages SPOT, a research group on sustainable polymer technologies, developing chemical technologies for lignin and plastics recycling from lab to pilot. She is the VITO representative in Capture, a shared research platform on resource recovery in Flanders. Currently, she is responsible for the lignin program in Biorizon (www.biorizon.eu), a shared research centre aiming at industrial success of bioaromatics by 2025. Meanwhile she acted as working group leader in the European Lignocost action to coordinate the development of applications derived from lignin. VITO is an independent Flemish research organisation in the area of cleantech and sustainable development. Our goal? To accelerate the transition to a sustainable world.

Sylvain Caillol is Research Director at CNRS. He graduated as an engineer from the National Graduate School of Chemistry of Montpellier in 1998, and then received his M. Sc. Degree in Chemistry from the University of Montpellier. He obtained his doctorate in 2001 from the University of Bordeaux. Then, he joined the Rhodia Company where he headed the polymer research department at the Paris Research Center. In 2007, he joined the CNRS at the Charles Gerhardt Institute at the University of Montpellier. His research focuses on Biobased Polymers and Sustainable Design of Polymers. He is co-author of nearly 300 articles, patents and book chapters. He won the Green Materials Prize in 2018 and 2020 and he has been on Stanford‘s list of World Top Scientists since 2021. He won the Carnot Prize in 2023.

Luis Cabedo Mas is Materials Science and Engineering Professor, head of the BioPIMA research group, and director of the UBE Chair of Sustainable Plastics at Universitat Jaume I in Castelló (Spain). With a chemical engineer and materials science background, he has devoted his entire scientific career to the field of plastic materials. Initially, his research focused on high-barrier packaging materials and polymer matrix nanocomposites. However, for about the last 15 years, he has focused on the study and improvement of biodegradable plastic materials for short-live applications, primarily in th food packaging sector. His work has been centered on enhancing both the processing of biodegradable plastics, and their final properties and in service performance. More recently, part of his research group’s work has focused on the study of the biodegradability of plastic materials and how this natural process can help reduce their environmental impact of plastic waste. Regarding his scientific productivity, he is the author of more than 80 scientific publications, as well as over 100 communications at conferences, some book chapters, and three patents. Throughout his career, he has been the promoter of 3 spin-off companies. He has participated in and led more than 25 competitive projects and 30 contracts with national and multinational companies.

Philip B. V. Scholten holds a PhD in chemistry and has more than eight years of experience in research and development of renewable and sustainable polymers and chemicals. At Bloom Biorenewables he is currently the Chief Innovation Officer where he and his team develop sustainable biomaterials of the future. He is also the scientific communication officer of Circul-a-bility, a network of European scientists developing tomorrow’s circular food packaging, and an ally and advocate for equal opportunities and diversity in science. Outside of work Philip enjoys the outdoors and is a cooking and chocolate afficionado.

DAY 2: Circularity in Light-Mediated Additive Manufacturing

Tim received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Virginia Tech, and he subsequently joined both Eastman Kodak and Eastman Chemical companies for eight years upon graduation. He joined the faculty in the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Tech, where he also served as the Director of the Macromolecules Innovation Institute until 2019. In 2020, Prof. Long accepted an interdisciplinary faculty position across the School of Molecular Sciences (SMS) and the School for Engineering Matter, Transport, and Energy (SEMTE) at Arizona State University (ASU) where he launched and now leads the Biodesign Center for Sustainable Macromolecular Materials and Manufacturing (BCSM3). In addition to over 430 peer-reviewed publications, his research awards include the 2023 3M Excellence in Adhesion Award, 2022 Paul J Flory Award, 2020 Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, 2015 Virginia Scientist of the Year, 2010 Virginia Tech Alumni Research Award, ACS PMSE Collaborative Research Award, PSTC Carl Dahlquist Award, 2019 ACS Rubber Division Thermoplastic Elastomer Award, and the ACS POLY Mark Scholar Award. His most recent research efforts address the need for tailored advanced macromolecules for advanced manufacturing (3D printing), including vat photopolymerization, direct ink write, binder jetting, powder bed fusion, and melt extrusion. His research ranges from controlled polymerization processes for block copolymers to high performance engineering polymers for emerging technology with a lens of earth sustainability.

Joseph M. DeSimone is the Sanjiv Sam Gambhir Professor of Translational Medicine and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. He is also Co-Director of Stanford’s Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics (PHIND) Center (Canary Center) and the founding Faculty Director of the Center for STEMM Mentorship at Stanford. He holds appointments in the Departments of Radiology and Chemical Engineering with courtesy appointments in the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Previously, DeSimone was a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University. He is also Co-founder, Board Member, and former CEO (2014 – 2019) of the additive manufacturing company, Carbon.

Prof. Haritz Sardon is the Head of the Catalysis and Sustainable Polymers Group at POLYMAT – UPV/EHU (Spain) and currently Assistant Professor at the University of Basque Country. His research on new polymers has been recognized with several awards, including Macromolecules Young Investigator Award (2021), The Excellence of Young Researcher in Chemistry Award by the Spanish Royal Society (2021) BBVA Leonardo Award (2020) and the Excellence of Young Researcher in Polymers Award by the Grupo Español de Polímeros (2020). He is the co-author of 150+ publications in peer-reviewed journals that have received over 8000 citations. His h-index is 50 (Google scholar, 923). His research focuses on the preparation of new functional polymeric materials using sustainable polymerization. Specially, his investigations involve the synthesis of new polymers using “green” polymerization processes such as monomers from polymer recycling, reagents from renewable sources or the use of less hazardous organocatalysts.

Eva Blasco completed her Ph.D. studies at the University of Zaragoza (Spain). Thereafter, she obtained an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship to work in the groups of Prof. Barner-Kowollik and Prof. Wegener at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and she continued as a group leader at the same institution. In October 2020, she was appointed junior professor at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and in January 2023 she was promoted to full professor. She has published more than 90 publications and she is principal investigator in large number of national and international projects. Since 2023, she is also a member of the executive board of the Excellence Cluster on Additive Manufacturing 3D Matter Made to Order (3DMM2O). Recently, she has been awarded with several prizes e.g. Ernst-Haage Chemistry Award 2022, SPIE 3D Printing Award or Young Investigator Award (Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry). Her research interests include the development of new functional materials for 3D/4D microprinting.

Program

DAY 1: Renewable resources for more circular plastics

Polymers synthesised from renewable sources stand as sustainable alternatives to petro-based polymers because they are produced from biomass derivatives or recycled raw materials. Immense challenges remain for these plastics to significantly contribute to a more circular plastic economy as they only represent 1% of the current plastics production worldwide.

The talented speakers of day 1 should help us understand what are these challenges and how they are about to be overcame with new processes, innovative catalysis methods and efficient technology transfer.

Biorefineries and industrial trends – biobased building blocks: what’s on the move?

Karolien Vanbroekhoven / Flemish institute for technological research (VITO)

In the world of tomorrow, even if we would all consume less, a lot of carbon will always be needed to foresee in our primary needs as people like food but mainly for our daily product and material use. While moving away from fossil resources, the remaining options are recycling, CO2 and/or biobased. Different scenario’s exist, but for sure biomass is always part of the solution. Therefore, biorefineries play a crucial role in the transition towards a more sustainable and environmentally friendly industrial landscape. They are instrumental in the conversion of biomass into a wide range of valuable products, including biofuels, biochemicals, and materials. Over the past years, the development of new value chains in the biobased building blocks sector was very dynamic, driven by various trends and advancements. Technology develops, which allows innovations to move in technology readiness level, from lab to pilot, also delivering building blocks at kg to ton scale and thus promoting value chain development. This results in a very delicate play between suppliers and end-users. Economic elements always play a role (money is the language that everybody understands), and therefore should be taken into account when developing a chemical substitute/replacement early on, understanding the technology and its sensitivity elements like what cost is critical and should be improved. Finally, it all goes together with the regulatory framework, where subsidies can favor a certain development over a more sustainable one since both rely on a similar feedstock (biomass for energy versus materials), or new frameworks are developed that urge for a biobased, safer alternative. The different aspects will be explained using lignin refinery and its development as a use case.

A journey around circularity in polymers, from renewable resources to recycling

Sylvain Caillol / CNRS, University of Montpellier (France)

Recent years have witnessed an increasing demand for environmentally friendly materials, particularly for polyurethanes (PU)s, which correspond to 6th polymer in the world with an annual production close to 20Mt. We have synthesized biobased polymers from renewable resources, particularly natural phenols, following a platform approach and convergent functionalization routes. Furthermore, in order to reduce the environmental impact, we have also proposed to replace some harmful monomers and additives by less harmful substances. Hence, we have proposed substitution of BPA in epoxy networks, and regarding PUs, we have developed a platform approach for the synthesis of non-isocyanates PUs. We have thoroughly investigated the reactivity, the interest and limits of this reaction leading to polyhydroxyurethanes (PHU)s, and particularly to hybrid PHUs. We have also designed self-healing polymers and coatings to improve the lifespan of polymers. In order to consider the full life cycle of materials, we also studied the recycling of thermosetting polymers especially by the synthesis of vitrimers.

Integration of Biodegradable Plastics into the Circular Economy: Challenges and Opportunities

Luis Cabedo Mas / University Jaume I (Spain)

One of the most pressing environmental challenges we currently face is undoubtedly the issue created by plastic waste. The massive consumption of plastic materials, combined with their often challenging post-consumer management and the persistence of their residues in the environment, renders mismanaged plastic waste a critical environmental threat. The solution to this problem lies in transforming the plastic industry into a circular paradigm, where plastic waste holds value as a raw material (thus allowing to be reintegrated into the industry through recycling), or can be treated as organic matter under suitable conditions. It is within this second approach that biodegradable materials emerge as a sustainable alternative to conventional plastics. However, being merely biodegradable is insufficient for a material to be genuinely beneficial to the industry or for its processing as organic matter to be feasible. This presentation will delve into the challenges that biodegradable polymers must overcome to serve as a true sustainable and circular alternative to plastic materials in the packaging sector. It will also explore the concept of biodegradation and its significance in the effective management of plastic waste.

Sustainable production of high-performance bio-based chemicals and materials

Philip Scholten / Bloom Biorenewables (Switzerland)

Biomass has been long deemed a ubiquitous resource for chemistry. However, the efficiency, cost, and performance of these processes and products have so far not matched the petroleum industry. Bloom is developing a biorefinery which enables to valorise all biopolymers present in biomass for the chemical industry with performance, cost, and sustainability outperforming petroleum derived analogues.

DAY 2: Circularity in Light-Mediated Additive Manufacturing

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has the potential for both reduced energy consumption and less polymeric material utilization. As the name implies, additive manufacturing contrasts with subtractive processes, as it relies on the layer-by-layer deposition of materials. This allows geometric designs of 3D objects with unprecedented complexity, in bulk and porous shapes with reduced waste generation. Among AM methods vat photopolymerization (VP) techniques are well established and considered one of the advanced AM techniques owing to the improved efficiency and printing resolution at the macroscale. However, little attention has been paid to the sustainability of the process in line with the industrial requirements.

Speakers from day 2 will help us to understand the key design parameter for next generation materials for AM, and how to increase the circularity of products derived from AM ensuring that this industrial revolution does not create a new plastic waste problem.

Designing Advanced Macromolecules for Advanced Manufacturing: Balancing Reactivity, Rheology, and Resolution

Timothy E. Long / Arizona State University (USA)

Additive manufacturing (AM) offers the promise for addressing looming concerns for materials sustainability with chemical processes that require less energy and result in less material consumption. However, research must impose a lens of sustainability earlier in the innovation process, where processes and materials are designed to adhere to the principles of green chemistry and strive for more sustainable engineering. Novel materials for AM continue to emerge at a feverish rate, and it is imperative that we begin to consider end-of-life (EOL) earlier in the material and process design. Our research has focused on light-based AM modalities due to the unique combination of low energy consumption, exceptional resolution that enables less material consumption in latticed architectures, and the opportunity to print high molecular weight polymers with low viscosities. An important motivation is the opportunity to intensify chemical processes, wherein the synthetic chemistry occurs in a printed shape that serves as the reactor that ultimately results in a printed object. Advanced macromolecular materials for advanced manufacturing require a precisely tailored balance of reactivity and rheological performance that collectively ensure precise resolution from diverse additive manufacturing modalities. This lecture will exemplify our most recent efforts involving vat photopolymerization of fully aromatic polyimide hydrogels for printing carbonaceous objects, aqueous polymeric latexes for printing ABA triblock copolymer elastomers, and printing unsaturated polyesters in the absence of solvent with the opportunity for subsequent recycling. Polyimide polymeric salts offer desirable solution viscosity, and recent efforts have involved the tuning of crosslink density with mixed polysalts wherein the photo-active diacid concentration is precisely controlled. Sulfonation of diamines renders all-aromatic polyimide precursors in water, thus enabling the vat photopolymerization of polyimides in water. SIS triblock copolymers are prepared as a colloid and printed in the presence of an aqueous scaffold. Removal of water allows for the formation of nanostructured ABA triblock copolymers with tensile elongations exceeding 800%.

The Delicate Interplay Between Light, Interfaces and Design: The Complex Dance that Allows 3D Printing to Scale to Manufacturing

Joe DeSimone / Stanford University (California, USA)

The production of polymeric products relies largely on age-old molding techniques. In this talk, I will describe a breakthrough in additive manufacturing—3D printing—referred to as Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP) technology (Science 2015). CLIP, and its recently introduced cousin injection CLIP (iCLIP; Science Advances 2022), embody a convergence of advances in software, hardware, and materials to bring the digital revolution to the design and manufacturing of polymeric products. CLIP uses software-controlled chemistry to produce commercial quality parts rapidly and at scale by capitalizing on the principle of oxygen-inhibited photopolymerization to generate a continual liquid interface of uncured resin between a forming part and a printer’s exposure window. Instead of printing layer-by-layer, this allows layerless parts to ‘grow’ from a pool of resin, formed by light. Compatible with a wide range of polymers, CLIP opens major opportunities for innovative products across diverse industries. Previously unmakeable products are already manufactured at scale with CLIP, including the large-scale production of running shoes by Adidas (Futurecraft 4D); mass-customized football helmets by Riddell; the world’s first FDA-approved 3D printed dentures; and numerous parts in automotive, consumer electronics, and medicine. At Stanford, we are pursuing new advances including new multi-material printing approaches, recyclable materials, materials for advanced ceramics, and the design of a high-resolution printer. High resolution 3D printing, combined with the ability to fabricate free-form negative spaces, open up new applications in microelectronics, “digital dust”—precision particles having un-moldable geometries (Nature 2024, in press), and drug/vaccine delivery devices including novel microneedle designs as a potent vaccine delivery platform and for the sampling of interstitial fluids for health monitoring and the early detection of disease.

Sustainability Aspects in Additive Manufacturing: From biomass utilization to recyclability

Haritz Sardon / Polymat – UPV/EHU (Spain)

Initially developed for rapid prototyping, additive manufacturing (AM) (colloquially 3D printing) is now scaling up its capacity to foster Industry 4.0 and operate a paradigm shift in the way products are manufactured. In addition to enabling new design capabilities, AM holds promises for increased social, economic, and environmental sustainability. Among AM methods vat photopolymerization (VP) techniques are desired owing to their improved efficiency and printing resolution. Nevertheless, the major portion of resins available for VP are based on systems coming from petroleum and/or with limited or negligible recyclability. In this lecture we will show how we can exploit the use of biomass as alternative interesting source for the production of 3D objects with enhanced properties and how we can implement new chemistries that differ from conventional light mediated non-recyclable free radical or cationic photopolymerization of (meth)acrylate or epoxide monomers to produce resins with circularity built into their performance.

Functional polymers for 4D microprinting: towards “living” systems

Eva Blasco / Heidelberg University (Germany)

4D printing has become a promising tool for the fabrication of dynamic and adaptive structures. During the last years, promising examples of defined 4D microstructures employing stimuli-responsive materials have been shown using two-photon 3D laser printing. Herein, we present our recent work on the field with emphasis on new responsive materials enabling the preparation of adaptive and structures. In particular, shape memory polymers as well as liquid crystal elastomers have been explored. In the first case, a simple and versatile formulation has been developed enabling complex microstructures with remarkable shape memory properties. Also, multi-responsive structures using photo responsive liquid crystal elastomers, are demonstrated. Furthermore, we have exploited the inclusion of dynamic and living bonds in a printable formulation enabling the creation of microstructures with „life-like” characteristics such as adaptability by tunable shape and mechanical properties. In addition, we demonstrated at the macromolecular sequence, specifically the positioning of the crosslinkable group, plays a critical role in both the printability and final properties of the printed material. We envision that careful and precise design of new printable materials will open new opportunities for the additive manufacturing of functional devices in the near future.

Registration and fees

⏰ Registration is available from March 8 to May 5 at midnight CEST (Madrid), hurry up!

What is included in you registration:

• participation in all the activities of the selected day/days
• welcome kit with some useful items for your staying
• community lunch break
• community coffee break

📌 Registration fees:

Only DAY 1 / € 75

Only DAY 2 / € 75

DAY 1 and DAY 2 / € 100

To register, please click on the below botton: you will be invited to fill a form with your data, preferences and invoice details.

The confirmation you will receive after filling the form is not the final confirmation of the registration.

You are invited to forward the receipt confirmation to the following adress, specifying in the subject “Name Surname receipt” (ex. Mark Smith receipt): circularity.plastics@polymat.eu

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Please, if you have any doubt feel free to contact circularity.plastics@polymat.eu