Biobased Materials
Full course description
Presently, a transition from fossil-based to a more sustainable and biobased society is taking place. This change is driven by the current trend of climate change and the predicted depletion of fossil reserves. The aim of the chemical industry is to not only replace currently made plastics and polymers with sustainable biobased alternatives, but also to produce new materials with additional useful characteristics from biological renewable sources. This requires a multidisciplinary approach in which production of biological resources, its processing and possible modification are first steps. New chemical technologies or biotechnologies may be required to obtain the right methods and synthesis routes to produce biobased materials and new materials that have novel functionalities.
This course aims to introduce the students into the biobased economy and the multidisciplinary way of thinking in value chains from biobased resources to biobased materials. The transition to a biobased economy not only requires the development of novel technology and policies, but also a completely different approach. When doing biology, chemistry, materials science or technology, a different way of thinking and attitude are required to make a full transition possible. The change in thinking starts with the people designing and making the biobased products and technologies for the biobased economy.
In advance of your upcoming career as a scientist and in the nearby future your master’s thesis, you will also learn to write, present and defend a research proposal.
Course objectives
This course introduces students into the multidisciplinary field of biobased materials. The course aims to make the students comprehend the importance of the transition from a fossil-based to a more sustainable biobased economy and society. The scientific, industrial and societal challenges associated with this transition will be a central theme in this course.
In this course, students will get acquainted with the different parts of the biobased value chain from resources to biobased materials and their applications. They will study, understand and apply knowledge of biobased resources, conversion of biomass, biobased products (biofuels and bioplastics), disposal of biobased products and sustainability impact of biobased products over their life cycle.
In addition, students will learn how to develop a successful research proposal. They will define and crystallize a research question based on its feasibility and scientific relevance and will prepare and structure arguments and plan different parts of the proposal, such as the research design and the methods for data acquisition and analysis, as well as the societal impact of the proposed research. They will learn how to walk through the writing process starting from draft to the final version, and, finally, how to present the proposal in an appealing way and to defend the proposal for a critical audience.
Recommended reading
We will make use of scientific articles, official reports of governmental organizations or committees involved in promoting/supporting biobased products, materials and economy. References to course materials are provided per task or tutorial. We will not use a textbook for this course.
Maastricht University students have off-campus (this means outside Maastricht) access to protected services and resources, like databases, e-journals and e-books of the UM Library. On Brightlands Chemelot Campus, you can use the Brightlands Guest Wi-Fi to get internet access. Different solutions are provided for remote access: Direct Library login, Library Access Browser Extension, Student Desktop Anywhere (SDA) and Virtual Private Network (VPN). All information is provided on the website: https://library.maastrichtuniversity.nl/services/remote-access/
Textbook as further reading material
“Introduction to Chemicals from Biomass” (2015) J. Clark and F. Deswarte (ed.) Wiley (UK).