Plant-derived Building Blocks
Full course description
This course provides students with insights and knowledge on general and fundamental
aspects of plant derived materials and building blocks. These may include fibers, natural
polymers and other bulk material harvested from plants, but also interesting secondary
metabolites like terpenoid- and alkaloid-based building blocks. Sustainable industrial
utilization of these may drive knowledge generation on how to convert our fossil-based
organic chemical industry towards a more sustainable biobased industry. Future materials
will contain other building blocks than we are using today, giving materials with substituted
or outperforming (combinations of) functionalities.
Course objectives
This course combines elements of biology, bio-organic chemistry, material science and
biochemistry to make students familiar with fundamental aspects including structural and
functional characteristics, (bio)synthesis and applications of materials and building blocks
derived from plants. The structure/function relationship of the natural products and bio
based building blocks as well as their extraction, production and utilization in material
science will be studied and analyzed.
At the end of this course, student should be able to:
1. Describe biosynthetic pathways in plants for the production of the main classes of
primary and secondary metabolites
2. Recognize from the structure the different classes of natural products and biobased
building blocks including carbohydrates, fatty acids and lipids, polyketides, alkaloids,
terpenoids & steroids, (poly)phenolics & flavanoids
3. Understand the general concepts of biosynthesis/biotechnology and its relevance for
biobased building blocks or biobased materials
4. Describe the different types of plant-derived materials and correlate their structure
/composition with their function in the plant and in the final material application.
5. Explain how materials and building blocks can be derived from plant biomass and
illustrate the concept of biorefinery
6. Research and communicate a scientific topic in a clear and concise way to a group of
scientific peers.
7. Perform a bioextraction/synthetic application of a plant derived building block
towards a functional material, analyse the experimental data and report the results
Recommended reading
Mandatory Literature
The lectures and your notes are the most valuable resources for information. Relevant
literature and study material will be provided during the course.
Several lectures are based on the following book:
Introduction to chemicals from biomass, 2nd edition (2015) James Clark & Fabien
Deswarte
Additional Literature
Specific literature for specific assignments will be provided during the course.
- R.V.A. Orrù