Bio-derived materials, medicines and platform chemicals are all emerging as important industries as the world transitions away from petroleum-derived chemistry. This provides us with an opportunity to reinvent these industries in a green and sustainable way. We are developing new methods in green chemical synthesis which allow for the efficient use of bioresources in the chemical industries.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
Cellulose functionalisation
Nanocellulose, comprising cellulose nanofibers (CNFs), cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), and bacterial nanocellulose (BNC), is one of the most promising bio-based nanomaterials owing to its renewable nature, abundance, excellent mechanical properties, and unique optical behaviour.
We are developing novel methods for the functionalisation of nanocellulose with polymers and small-molecules, delivering green chemical methods to produce functional materials.
Enzymatic production of oligosaccarides
Generation of specific xylooligosaccharides (XOS) is attractive to the pharmaceutical and food industries due to the importance of their structure upon their application. This study used chemometrics to develop a comprehensive computational modelling set to predict the parameters maximising the generation of the desired XOS during enzymatic hydrolysis. The evaluated parameters included pH, temperature, substrate concentration, enzyme dosage and reaction time.
PUBLICATIONS
“Synthesis of Superabsorbent Polyacrylic Acid-Grafted Cellulose Nanofibers via Silver-Promoted Decarboxylative Radical Polymerization” David Joram Mendoza, Meri Ayurini, Vikram Singh Raghuwanshi, George P Simon, Joel F Hooper, Gil Garnier, Macromolecules 2023, 56(10), 3497-3506. DOI: 10.1021/acs.macromol.3c00431.
“Photo-responsive lignin fragment-based polymers as switchable adhesives” Pallabi Sinha Roy, Matthieu M Mention, Antonio F Patti, Gil Garnier, Florent Allais, Kei Saito, Polymer Chemistry, 2023, 14, 913-924. DOI: 10.1039/D2PY01474B
“Chemometric optimisation of enzymatic hydrolysis of beechwood xylan to target desired xylooligosaccharides,” Gloria L. Díaz-Arenas, Leo Lebanov, Estrella Sanz Rodríguez, M. Munir Sadiq, Brett Paull, Gil Garnier, Joanne Tanner, Bioresource Technology, 2022, 352, 127041. DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127041