Vincenzo Taresco seminar
Iolanda Francolini is pleased to invite you to the seminar:
Greening-up Polymers Production: from Bio-Renewable Building Blocks to Sustainable Solvents
Vincenzo Taresco, School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
The seminar will be held in Parravano Hall, Cannizzaro building CU014, Tuesday 30 May at 2.30 PM.
Abstract
As environmental impact becomes a more pressing concern, there is an increasing interest in alternative solvents that have the potential to alleviate water contamination issues, reduce energy costs and reduce the impact on the environment. Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) is a promising alternative solvent, combining considerable environmental advantages with the desired solvation and diffusivity properties of super critical fluids. It is a cheap, non-flammable and environmentally friendly solvent, with an easily attainable critical point at relatively mild conditions (Tc = 31.1 °C and Pc =73.8 bar). A further advantage of using scCO2 as a polymerisation medium, is found after the polymer is formed. When returning to atmospheric conditions, CO2 reverts to the gas phase providing a solvent free polymer product, without the need for energy and cost intensive drying processes.
At the same time, there is significant potential for industrial use of renewables for a wide range of materials demanded by society. Plants and trees, food- and biodiesel- waste streams, among other sources, are increasingly attracting attention as sustainable sources for functionalised and polymerisable building blocks. Our research aims at expanding the opportunities to exploit the largely untapped renewable feedstocks coming from nature and waste streams and exploit benign enzymatic catalysis and/or controlled radical polymerisations using supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) and bio-derived solvents avoiding use of any petrochemically derived solvents.
This work highlights promising and clean approaches to produce bio-renewable polymers capable of either outperforming fossil-based alternatives or possessing new properties and functionalities of relevant interest in the framework of the circular economy.
References
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Dr. Vincenzo Taresco 
Dr Vincenzo Taresco is a Nottingham Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Nottingham. He studied industrial chemistry at Sapienza University of Rome (Bachelor and Master, both with honour from 2004-2010) and in the same institution he was awarded a PhD in polymer chemistry in the Doctorate School of Chemical Science, Vito Volterra in 2014. After a short research period with Prof. Antonella Piozzi and Prof. Iolanda Francolini at Sapienza University of Rome, Vincenzo moved for his first PDRA position at the University of Nottingham in the School of Pharmacy under the supervision of Prof. Martin Garnett. Always remaining in the School of Pharmacy, in 2017 he moved to a second PDRA position in the group of Prof Cameron Alexander. In 2019 he took a senior research officer position (group leader) in the group of Prof Steven Howdle and at the end of 2022, he was awarded a Nottingham Research Fellowship. Taresco’s group research focuses on combining the differentiation of polymer backbone chemistries by adding moieties from bio-renewable sources to deliver more sustainable, chemically sophisticated and multi-responsive polymeric devices (chemical/bio/physical/responsive). These novel “green” and “smart” tools will have an impact in a variety of fields, such as additive manufacturing, agro-food (novel sustainable inks, multifunctional scaffolds, etc.), pharmaceutical and tissue engineering. (https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/chemistry/people/vincenzo.taresco#lookup-personal-details)