SMART POP · SMART POwder and Products
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-11-11 → 2024-07-12
- EU contribution
- €261,170
- Participants
- 2
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
SMART POwder and Products
The current lifestyles of the EU, New Zealand, and other emerging countries, along with their technological advancements, have led to societal expectations for the design of new hi-tech products. In recent years, the use of cellulose and lignocellulosic materials for chemistry, energy, and materials has emerged as a sustainable alternative to fossil feedstock. However, research must be conducted to develop efficient processes that can economically and competitively produce high-value products from plant feedstocks. The SMART POP project aims to address this need by designing new environmentally-friendly materials from biobased matrices and lignocellulosic biomass powder, particularly by employing mechanosynthesis and additive manufacturing techniques. The project's objective is to analyze how the properties of powders resulting from the mechanical deconstruction of lignocellulosic biomasses can influence the performance of the composite biobased materials created through 3D printing. To achieve this, the project employs a dual strategy based on both direct and reverse engineering at different stages of the manufacturing process. Direct engineering is used to understand how feedstock properties and process parameters affect the qualities of powders and end products. In parallel, a reverse engineering approach is implemented to adjust the properties of the 3D printed products by modifying the process conditions during milling and additive manufacturing.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Plant biomass represents a quasi-unlimited reservoir of functional elements, which are buried within large macrostructure assemblies. Extreme comminution of plant materials is a way to reveal emergent functionalities that can be exploited in highly technical applications such as smart materials designed by additive manufacturing. This dramatic size reduction induces physical and chemical changes whose interconnections have not yet been investigated. The concept of the SMART POP project is to exploit them to prepare powders with enhanced functionalities and flowabilities. By stirring these powders into a polymeric matrix, the final aim is to design, using 4D-printing, environmentally friendly materials that can react to environmental stimuli. By using direct and reverse engineering approaches, the SMART POP project will explore two functionalities that the biomass powder could provide to the materials from grafted-molecules : a fluorescent response to an environmental stimulus and the control of the degradation of the matrix thanks to delayed acid hydrolysis reactions. These functionalities will be studied in close interaction with the different processing steps and related to flowability of the powder. The originality of the SMART POP project relies on a strong interdisciplinary (chemistry, physics, engineering, etc.). Its achievement will be possible thanks to the broad scientific background of Dr Claire Mayer-Laigle and the facilities & skills developed by the host team in SCION Institute (NZ) since more than 10 years. During the outgoing phase, the host team will train Dr Claire Mayer-Laigle to numerous additive manufacturing technologies and conjoint innovative developments are expected. The return phase in the beneficiary institute (INRA) will be devoted to the transfer of the acquired skills, the dissemination of the results, the creation of a strong network and the setting up of ambitious project to carry this thematic at the European level.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE POUR L'AGRICULTURE, L'ALIMENTATION ET L'ENVIRONNEMENT · ParisCoordinatorFrance
- NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE FOR BIOECONOMY SCIENCE LIMITED · LINCOLNNew Zealand
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union