The close collaboration between organic chemists and engineers, which we began >20 years ago, has allowed us for the development of sustainable concepts for scalable direct fabrication and functionalization of valuable products from biomass under reduced energy consumption. Here several eco-friendly large-scale processes on lignocellulosic materials are now used in industry.1-4 This was accomplished by creating a unique synergistic environment between chemists and engineers. Thus, taking academic research on lignocellulosic materials, process chemistry and catalysis to industrial environmentally benign production of new sustainable products.
1. Hafrén, J.; Córdova, A. Organoclick: Applied Eco-Friendly and Metal-Free Catalysis for Wood and Fiber Modifications. In ”Industrial Biorenewables: A practical viewpoint”, Domínguez de María, P. Ed. John Wiley & Sons Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. 2016.
Industrial Biorenewables: A Practical Viewpoint
2. Afewerki, S.; Alimohammadzadeh, R.; Osong, S. H.; Tai, C.-W., Engstrand, P.; Córdova, A. Sustainable design for the direct fabrication and highly versatile functionalization of nanocellulose. Global Challenges 2017, 1, 1700045.
3. Alimohammadzadeh, R.; Sanhueza, I.; Córdova, A. Design and Fabrication of Superhydrophobic Cellulose Nanocrystal Films by Combination of Self-Assembly and Organocatalysis, Sci. Rep. 2023, 13, 3157.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-29905-1
4. Córdova, A.; Afewerki, S.; Alimohammadzadeh, R.; Sanhueza, I.; Tai, C.-W.; Osong, S.; Engstrand, P.; Ibrahem, I. A sustainable strategy for production and functionalization of nanocelluloses. Pure Appl. Chem. 2019, 91, 865.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/pac-2018-0204/html