Sustainable production of piezoelectric bioplastics

Nowadays the production of electricity from renewable and wasted resources is an important challenge. A green way to produce electrical energy can be the recovering and conversion of wasted mechanical energy such as vibration, kinetic energy, or deformation energy, in electricity. This process is called mechanical energy harvesting.  Piezoelectric materials could be applied to build piezoelectric energy harvesters (PEHs) as promising independent renewable power sources for low-power electronic devices such as wireless sensors, portable devices, stretchable electronics, and medical implants (biosensor) [1-2]. In this context, green piezoelectric bioplastics such as poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA), polyamide 11 and biobased polyurethanes could represent an interesting alternative that have benefits regarding carbon footprint, thus decreasing the environmental impact of PEHs devices. However, the practical application of bioplastics is limited because its piezoelectric constant is much lower than those of ceramic piezoelectric materials, PVDF and its copolymers [3]. Thus, to find new strategies and pathway for the large-scale production and processing of green bioplastics with improved piezoelectric properties is a challenge [4]. This talk will focus on the design of new bioplastics with piezoelectric properties for energy harvesting applications offering innovative potential industrial solutions.

References

1.   Shaikh, F. K., & Zeadally, S. Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. 2016, 55, 1041-1054.

2. Hinchet, R., & Kim, S. W. ACS nano. 2015, 9 (8), 7742-7745.

3. Chorsi, M. T., Curry, E. J., Chorsi, H. T., Das, R., Baroody, J., Purohit, P. K., Ilies H. & Nguyen, T. D. Adv. Mat. 2019, 31(1), 1802084.

4. Sessini, V., Thai, C. N., Amorín, H., Jiménez, R., Samuel, C., Caillol, S…& Raquez, J. M. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. 2021, 9(44), 14946-14958.

Acknowledgements

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the GET Cofund Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 754382.

 

Martes, Julio 5, 2022 - 12:30
Valentina Sessini
Departamento de Química Orgánica e Inorgánica, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Alcalá
Sala 110
Seminario