Recent advances in Green Materials Science for Bio-Engineering applications may be of interest to the polymeric and supramolecular materials industry, in the form of providing cost-effective bio-sourced alternatives to artificial plastics. Indeed, traditional disposable plastics have now become a global environmental concern due to their overuse, non-degradability, and toxicity.  This presentation will highlight recent successes from various Sustainable Materials Science and Bio-Engineering efforts towards providing low- or non-impact plastics alternatives, based on soft-bonding between components in place of covalent bonds.  These encouraging examples are part of a larger network of local efforts, which could readily be implemented in many locations and environments, partnered with local sources of mechanically robust biomass.  A general strategy to develop local production and implementation partnerships will be discussed.<br/> <br/>Specifically at McGill University in Canada, as a working collaboration between our School of Environment, Center for Green Chemistry, and Materials Engineering Facility, we are developing bio-inspired, environmentally-degradable plastics alternatives.  Constructed from completely bio-sourced natural starting materials, these new ‘soft-bonded’ materials can be easily and cheaply fabricated locally, to replace many of the current artificial plastics used for structural materials.  Containing trigger-responsive ‘structural linking’ units, when exposed to specific stimuli after use they mechanically (not chemically) degrade, returning the polymer material starting components ‘reversibly’ back to their initial non-toxic and water-soluble form, out of sight and environmental harm. Recent work on sunlight-degradable polymers based on azobenzene photo-reversible structural units will be shared, as applied to using sunlight to re-dissolve the component materials into water after use.<br/>

Light-responsive polymers as photo-reversible dynamic soft-bonding materials

256th National Meeting (2018)

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