High Surface Area Macro-photoinitiators for Broad Range Solar Light Utilization, from Lab-to-Fab

Descripción del proyecto

Fabricación de polímeros por luz

Los procesos industriales son una fuente importante de emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI), ya que a menudo dependen de combustibles fósiles para obtener energía o implican reacciones químicas que producen estos contaminantes. Para mitigar la contaminación por GEI, es necesario que los procesos químicos consuman menos energía. La fotopolimerización es una prometedora alternativa ecológica que utiliza la luz o la luz solar natural para producir polímeros. Con el apoyo de las acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, el proyecto MacroPiN se alinea con los objetivos de la iniciativa Pacto Verde Europeo al proponer una fabricación de polímeros más limpia y escalable. El objetivo clave es desarrollar y estudiar catalizadores sólidos innovadores que absorban la luz y puedan desencadenar la polimerización. En comparación con los iniciadores convencionales, dichos catalizadores pueden recuperarse y reutilizarse fácilmente, lo cual hace que el proceso sea más sostenible y respetuoso con el medio ambiente.

Objetivo

Converting high energy consuming reaction techniques to energy efficient methods is probably the main interest of modern society, not only for economic reasons but also to avoid extended green-house gas release. In this context, light-driven methods such as photocatalysis is very interesting when compared to the conventional catalytic methods which require heating and/or high pressures.

Photopolymerization is an environmentally friendly technique to produce polymers since it is a light-driven process, which even can be conducted under natural sunlight. Photoinitiators are one of the essential components of the photopolymerization. Traditionally, these compounds are introduced to reaction mixture alongside with the monomers homogeneously, which makes it very hard to remove and reuse them. That being said, there are examples of macrophotoinitiators (MPIs), which kick-starts the photopolymerization reactions heterogeneously. However, such compounds are not systematically investigated, therefore, comprehensive studies covering syntheses of electronically adjusted MPIs to be facilitated in broad range of photopolymerization reactions from small- to big-scale are needed.

In this proposal (MacroPiN), we aim to conduct various photopolymerizations by using tailor-made MPI out of porous organic polymers, which offers high accessible surface areas and advanced photophysical features along their high-dimensional and hydrothermally stable backbones. In following, increasing the hydrophilicity of the produced MPIs to further utilize them in aqueous media (i.e. to investigate them in relatively more environmentally friendly conditions) will be an interest. Finally, aside performing photopolymerizations in batch, continuous flow reactors will be used to scale-up the photopolymerization products in a semi-autonomous and more “user-friendly” way. Therefore, the proposed research aligns very well with the “climate” and “zero pollution” ambitions of European Green Deal.