(376c) Value-added Biochemicals and Functional Biomaterials from Biowaste

Our society is facing long-term environmental challenges such as extreme climate change, resource and energy depletion, air pollution, food scarcity, and water and soil contaminations. To tackle these environmental and sustainable concerns and challenges, the use of green chemistry and engineering techniques to produce value-added bioproducts including platform chemicals, functional biomaterials, and biofuels from abundant renewable resources, especially low-cost waste becomes crucial. In this talk, I will present our studies on 1) fabrication of functional bio-based nanomaterials for mitigating water, soil, and food contaminants and 2) synthesis and production of chemical building blocks & monomer precursors for sustainable polymer systems and hydrocarbon fuels. The applications of the bioproducts in food safety, agricultural, and environmental areas will be discussed. The key problems during the self-assembling, molecular design and synthesis, and catalytical valorization of the waste will also be elucidated and addressed using several recent works.