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Multiscale approach for chemical sustainable strategies

There are many aspects concerning the chemical sustainable strategies, in this doctoral school will be dealt these topics:

  • Development of environmentally friendly strategies for the exploitation of waste matrices, to obtain fine chemicals and energy. This research project involves the utilization of biomass and by-products of the food industry aimed at the production of biogas, thus optimizing processes with low environmental impact, both in terms of volumes of waste products and of greenhouse gas emissions. A further aspect concerns the obtaining of fine chemicals (polyphenols, anthocyanins, tannins) from organic waste matrices together with their chemical characterization.
  • Design and implementation of model systems combining theoretical study with the experimental construction aimed to find the more eco-friendly compounds useful for metal trafficking in the environment. Coordination compounds play a fundamental role in the metabolism of minerals in humans and plants therefore the understanding of the metabolic processes involving metals allows to develop new chemical sustainable strategies for metals control in the environment. These goals may be reached by the design, synthesis and chemical-structural characterization of both small bioactive molecules and natural occurring complex matrices.
  • Design of environmentally safe procedures for the synthesis of halogenated -lactams, by copper catalysed atom transfer radical cyclization (ATRC), and the exploitation of the synthetic potential of these intermediates. Atom transfer radical addition is one of the smartest and emerging techniques which permeates the contemporary organic chemistry. Eco-friendly solvents, removable and cheap cyclization auxiliaries, the rate equation of the ATRC process, and the development of green catalysts, including their regeneration/recovery and eterogenization, are all important targets, being required for the engineering of semi-continuous batch processes, first step to the industrial scale-up of the reaction.

Researchers: Ferrari, Ghelfi, Malavasi, Marchetti, Roncaglia, Tassi