Polymer Coatings

Coatings for Circularity: Degradable, Adaptive, or Recyclable Polymer Coatings

Degradable Polymer Coatings & Polymer Brushes

Generally, polymer brushes are long-lasting coatings, which generate additional plastic waste. Therefore, it is important to consider additional design methodologies to produce circular brushes. Such brushes will degrade after a certain period of time and its depolymerization products may be used again to synthesize new brushes. In our group, we aim to understand and tackle the challenges of translating the knowledge on degradable polymers in bulk towards degradable polymer brushes. 

A special challenge is the surface-initiated ring-opening polymerization of cyclic esters, which has to be conducted at super-dry conditions to control the properties of the polymer coatings. A recent paper describes our approach to polyester coatings that can be degraded and the substrate can be recycled.

 


Biobased Coatings based on wood-derived materials

Lignocellulosic feedstock is used as a renewable material to generate new coatings for wood to generate biobased and recyclable coatings.