SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION, STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF NOVEL NONISOCYANATE POLYURETHANES

Project Information

NIPU

Grant agreement ID: 955700

DOI

10.3030/955700

Project closed

EC signature date 13 August 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 May 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 3 168 250,20

EU contribution

€ 3 168 250,20

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITE DE MONS
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NIPU (SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION, STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF NOVEL NONISOCYANATE POLYURETHANES)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2025-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

With our planet´s resources progressively becoming scarcer, implementing sustainability and green chemistry in the field of polymers as a motor to achieve the transition towards a resource-efficient and competitive economy is today essential to ensure biodiversity, social well-being, and environment protection. In particular, NIPU European Joint Doctorate (NIPU-EJD) aimed to develop more sustainable and less hazardous polyurethanes currently produced with carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic isocyanates and instead exploit bio- and CO2-sourced monomers as greener and high-performance alternatives to produce non-isocyanates polyurethanes (NIPUs). NIPUs have promising performance for emerging and highly demanded applications such as rigid and flexible foams, coatings, elastomers, adhesives, recycling, and 3D printing.
In order to achieve our research goal, NIPU-EJD has implemented a highly interdisciplinary, international, intersectoral doctoral training program focused on adding scientific/technical competencies as well as transferable skills to 12 Early Stage Rresearchers (ESRs) in the emerging and important area of applied polymer chemistry in the context of sustainability. For the first time, the NIPU-EJD program integrated world-class and well-rounded expertise in the development of NIPUs, working closely with industrial partners, who played an active role in the identification, validation and future adoption of the new sustainable and eco-friendly production and applications of NIPUs.
As a conclusion,
- our MSCA fellows are nowadays ready to face a high level and highly competitive research environment, via the skills that they have acquired throughout their doctorate and their secondments. The MSCA label is clearly an asset and the joint doctorates also.
- the safe and sustainable development of NIPU is still in its infancy from an industrial perspective though significant progresses have been made in the understanding and resolution of scientific and technical challenges related to NIPU, as could be highlighted by the number of scientific publications and patents. Fundamental research is however still necessary and target areas have been identified thanks to the work carried out by the consortium.
- In term of exploitation, the MSCA Doctoral Network Horizon Europe project has successfully delivered innovative solutions in the field of sustainable, non-isocyanate polyurethanes and a clear strategy has been defined: through strategic intellectual property protection, including three patents, and targeted exploitation mechanisms, these results offer significant potential for environmental and industrial impact.
- Continued collaboration with stakeholders will be essential to maximize their adoption and to drive further advancements in sustainable material technologies.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main achievements of the NIPU-EJD all over its duration include:

For governance and processes
- The establishment of the managerial framework, the joint governing structure and the cotutelle agreements.
- The recruitment of 12 highly motivated and promising ESRs, and their enrolment in PhD programs in two different Universities.

For the research
- The implementation of 12 innovative research projects on sustainable development of NIPU materials exploiting the principles of green chemistry. The projects focused in four work packages: 1) synthesis of new highly reactive building blocks, 2) new conceptual pathways for the synthesis of high molar mass NIPU, 3) sustainable polymerization and recycling processes, and 4) sustainable applications of NIPU. From a research dissemination perspective, 27 articles have been published and 3 patents have been filed, among which one has been published. Besides these results, 17 articles have either been submitted or are in preparation, that demonstrate the positive momentum that has been generated during the project and the valuable and impactful results of our MSCA fellows activity.

For the training and education activities
- The organisation of local training events and 6 network-wide events: the ESRs were trained ultimately as foreseen by their personal carrier development plan. It occurred locally, via meetings and reports requested by the supervisors and via networkwide activities that also supported the creation of a good dynamics among them. They had the opportunity to share their experience as Joint Doctorate MSCA young researchers during the final conference, supporting the mutual transmission and understanding of relevant set of skills, knowledge and behaviours.
- The possibility to be hosted and mentored at secondment institutions (academic and industrial). Industrial partners played a key role in orienting research projects and in ESRs co-supervision, enabling each ESR to gain good expertise of industry operations in general. These expertise will improve ESRs future career prospects and employment mobility.
- The research project as a whole, and the training program in particular, have a strong interdisciplinary, international and intersectoral commitment thanks to the NIPU-EJD secondment plan and its proper implementation.

For the communication and engagement with public
- The establishment and dynamic use of the communication channels, mainly LinkedIn because the most impactful, with posts on project events, ESRs activity, article publication and PhD defences (4 thesis defences within the 36 months of the grant).
Thanks to ESR's commitment to communicate NIPU-EJD project and program, we have created a large community that continuously follows our news through our social networks.
The fellows have engaged with general audience, including kids and high school, focus on women in science, and podcasts.
This has allowed to promote not only the project but mainly the scientific activity among various communities and audiences.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Although recent research breakthroughs have been reported on the safe and sustainable development of NIPU, this area of development is still in its infancy from an industrial perspective.

From a scientific point of view, the NIPU-EJD project has brought a series of advances in relation with the four research objectives.

From a competence point of view, the academic beneficiaries and industrial partners were fully committed to providing all necessary human and technical resources for the ESRs training.

From an exploitation point of view, it has been decided to understand in further details how to extract value from the implemented work and to analyse possibilities to enter a new project, ensuring a good balance between valuable topics identified by industry needing fundamental research, which is a scarce equilibrium to find.

After having carried out a survey among fellows and partners, some trends appear such as the value of working in multidisciplinary environment but also the very high administrative burden of such vehicle.

We do hope to have made a significant contribution to enhancing Europe's research capacities by addressing the shortage of young researchers with interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral and international training in in-demand sectors. In conclusion, we expect that NIPU-EJD has contributed to driving the transition towards a sustainable and green chemical industry in NIPUs and by shaping a new generation of young bright researchers well aware of and able to cope with all the challenges and solutions that sustainability in materials and in chemistry at large required.

logo-nipu-2951.png