HYDRA-CHEM · Hydrothermal and Ionothermal Chemistry For Sustainable Materials (HYDRA-CHEM)

This proposal aims to develop a novel type of chemistry by using hydrothermal or ionothermal reaction conditions to generate novel materials and polymers in a more sustainable fashion. Hydrothermal and ionothermal carbonization of sugars or crude biomass can lead directly to large scale carbon materials (and therefore to carbon-negative products and measures), and improvement by processing and hybridization with petrochemistry is expected to yield carbon structures with controlled surface chemistry and nano-morphology and therefore an extended application spectrum, useful for transfer to society. Model experiments indicate that using other simply available substances as monomers under HYDRA-conditions can result in high performance engineering plastics, ultrahigh surface materials for gas-storage, or novel fragments which are otherwise non accessible in comparable qualities under similarly sustainable conditions. That way, it is expected that HYDRA-Chem can expand synthetic chemistry in the direction of high temperatures and rather unusual solvent conditions.