Fall Speaker Meeting: Samy Madbouly

Most plastic materials are produced entirely from non-degradable petroleum-based products. With the recent effort to establish green chemistry and sustainability, great attention has been devoted to replacing petroleum-based polymers with more environmentally friendly biopolymers based on renewable resources. The growing interest in replacing petroleum-based products by inexpensive, renewable, natural materials is important for sustainable development into the future and will have a significant impact on the polymer industry and the environment. In this presentation, the synthesis, characterization, and processing of different types of bio-based polymers including plant oil-based polyurethane dispersions, foams, blends, and composites will be summarized. It is very crucial to understand the behavior of these important bio-based green polymers so that they can be designed in a controlled and reproducible manner to produce structural materials with desirable properties.