ENGINEERED NANOINTERFACES TO ENABLE PLANT-INSPIRED 3D PRINTING USING RENEWABLE MATERIALS

The long-term goal of the project team is to develop new and sustainable bioproducts from non-food biomass. We envision these products will be environmentally and economically sustainable, and they will enable Americans to enjoy their current lifestyle in a sustainable manner. The objective of this proposal is to create a sustainable material comprised of agriculturally derived components that will enable large-format 3D printing. We hypothesize that suitable chemical reactions between plant-derived materials will provide new strong and tough plastics that can be derived from soybean oil and plant materials. We will use a variety of high-tech materials characterization techniques to test our hypothesis. If realized, these new materials represent breakthroughs that will have a significant positive impacts on industries working in additive manufacturing and biorefining. Moreover, scientists working in the fields of materials science and biomass chemistry will benefit greatly from the knowledge gained from these experiments. Finally, residents of rural communities that provide biomass feedstocks for these efforts will ultimately benefit as these developments are scaled up and deployed.