A chemist at the University of Tokyo and a materials scientist at the University of Bristol are cooking up a new generation of plastic-like composites entirely from plant waste—lignin, cellulose, and soybean oil—without a drop of petroleum. Today’s composite materials—used in everything from car bumpers to wind turbine blades—rely heavily on oil-based plastics or carbon fibres. While researchers have separately turned lignin into resin precursors and cellulose into nanoscale reinforcements, nobody has yet combined these two renewable streams into a single, fully biobased composite. This project closes that gap by developing monomers from natural products like divanillic acid and ferulic acid, then polymerising them *in situ* with cellulose nanomaterials in a single reaction pot. If successful, the work could replace oil-derived construction materials—wall panels, roof sheeting, insulation boards—with a drop-in alternative that is fully renewable and biodegradable. The team will also conduct a full Life Cycle Assessment to confirm that these composites actually reduce carbon emissions compared to conventional materials, rather than simply shifting the environmental burden. The project directly targets UN Sustainable Development Goals 11, 12, and 13: sustainable cities, responsible consumption, and climate action.
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There is an ever increasing need to develop alternative materials for composites using sustainable and renewable resources. In recent years cellulose and lignin have emerged as separate solutions to this problem, but have typically been applied to composites as a component with other oil-based feedstocks - for instance cellulose fibres with thermoplastic/thermosets derived from oil, or carbon fibres from lignin as an alternative to PAN based materials. Significant developments have been made in recent years to take the rich chemical structure of lignin and convert it to useful feedstocks for resins. Some of this groundbreaking work has been carried out at the University of Tokyo in making divanillic acid based polymers from lignin. Equally, great strides have been made in developing cellulose nanomaterials for their use in composites, and unique derivatives that bridge the oil-water interface. Much of this work has been developed at Bristol University. This grant will bring together these unique and world-leading capabilities to develop a series of monomers from natural products, including divanallic acid, ferulic acid, and combinations of these with soybean oils. In situ polymerisation routes will be explored to make a 'one-pot' solution to the production of truly sustainable composite materials. These composite materials will be fully characterised in terms of their mechanical properties. Fundamental science of oil-water emulsions and emulsion polymerisation using these materials will be addressed, paving the way for their ultimate development in an ever increasingly sustainable world. Life Cycle Assessment of the materials will be undertaken for these materials to compare against traditional materials, for specific use in construction matrerials for housing. The whole package of work will address SDG12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), SDG13 (Climate Action), SDG11 (Sustainable Cities and Living).
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