Funding tool: Basic research projects
Project-ID: FTI25-G-013
Project start: 01. Juli 2026
Project end: 30. Juni 2029
Runtime: 36 months / not yet started
Funding amount: € 359.903,00

Brief summary:
Plastics make an indispensable contribution to the development of mankind in practically all areas of life, e.g. in modern medicine with an unprecedented increase in quality and expectation of life. However, this progress comes at a high price in terms of the exploitation of fossil resources and pollution of the environment. The use of renewable raw materials to replace synthetic polymers plays a major role in the transformation towards sustainable materials and environmentally friendly solutions. In some emerging areas, such as 3D printing through stereolithography, the use of both sustainable materials and composite materials is limited. In addition, the reprocessing and recycling of these materials is associated with great difficulties and great effort. In this project, possibilities for the design of 3D-printable composite materials based on sustainable resources are to be researched, which can be deconstructed by “degradation on demand” after the use of chemical and/or enzymatic agents and can be recycled for further material use. Based on vinyl ester monomers, a substance class similar to (meth-)acrylates but with significantly lower toxicity and inherently cleavable groups, cellulose and chitin nanofibrils will be chemically modified to allow molding by high-resolution 3D printing (stereolithography). By combining suitable monomers and modifications, the compatibility of the formulations is ensured and mechanical performance that can compete with conventional synthetic 3D printing materials is achieved by selecting suitable reinforcing materials. Once their service life has been reached, the basic building blocks can be recovered by splitting functional groups and reused, which dramatically reduces the amount of waste produced.

Keywords:
Biopolymers, Degradation on-demand, Vinyl ester, Cellulose, Chitin, enzymatic depolymerization, enzymatic recycling, chemical recycling