SUPERVISOR: Antje POTTHAST

PROJECT ASSIGNED TO: Venla RÄIHÄ

Most conventional plastics today are fossil-based. They have gained their position by being lightweight, easily adaptable to many applications, and due to their low cost. However, the CO2 emissions of the polymer production and microplastic formation when the plastics are mismanaged raise environmental concerns. To not entirely rely on crude oil-based plastics, bio-based alternatives are explored. Widely studied bioplastics, such as polylactic acid (PLA), are commonly produced from corn starch and sugarcane. As these feedstocks require agricultural land to grow, the competing land use with food production restricts up-scaling the production.

 Lignocellulosic biomass offers an alternative feedstock for biobased plastics. To meet the growing demand of biobased materials, fast-growing resources are crucial. This project focuses on utilizing bamboo lignin as source for bio-based composites, hence bamboo can be harvested in much shorter cycles than trees. Lignin is a heterogeneous polymer, responsible for the plant cell wall stiffness, and a side stream of bamboo pulping process. Its content in bamboo biomass varies from species to species but typically ranges from 20-25 %. 

In this project, lignin will be extracted from bamboo biomass using lignin-first principles to preserve the lignin close to its native structure. The extracted lignin will be further chemically modified before it is embedded into a composite matrix to be utilized as a high-performance bioplastic. The focus is on improving the physical properties of the composites, such as moisture resistance and thermal stability, to achieve the properties comparable to synthetic plastics.