Photopolymerization of bio-renewable monomers and oligomers
UV-induced polymerization of multifunctional monomers has found many industrial applications, mainly in the production of films, inks and coatings on a variety of substrates including paper, metal and wood. Moreover, it has demonstrated to be useful for more high-tech applications such as coating of optical fibers and fabrication of printed circuit boards.
Part of the reason for the growing importance of UV-curing techniques, both in industrial and academic research, is a peculiar characteristic that induces fast transformation of a liquid monomer into a solid polymeric film having distinctive physical-chemical and mechanical properties. This polymerization technique can be considered environmentally friendly owing to the solvent free methodology, and is usually carried out at room temperature, thus conferring added energy saving advantages.
In this seminar I will report different strategies followed by the polymer group at Politecnico di Torino, in Italy, in the direction of exploiting bio-renewable materials in UV-Curable formulations to achieve coatings, composites or 3D-printed hydrogels.
Speaker
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Marco SangermanoPolitecnico di Torino, ItalyMarco Sangermano is an Associate Professor of polymer science and technology at Politecnico di Torino, where he leads the Photopolymer lab. His research activity is focused on photopolymerization and its application on the fabrication of advanced hybrid materials, coatings, gas sensors, membranes, 3D printing, tissue engineering, and nanostructured polymeric coatings. He is also working on the development of new monomers from biorenewable resources to be used in the production of more environmentally-friendly materials. He currently collaborates with numerous academic and the R&D of many corporate partners worldwide. He is co-author of over 300 papers and several patents.