Group Head

Katrien Bernaerts

Associate Professor

Group Interests

The main research focus of our group is on the design and synthesis of sustainable polymer materials with tuneable properties for the circular economy. Sustainability entails biobased building blocks (but no biorefinery) instead of fossil raw materials, green routes for polymer synthesis and processing, as well as chemical recycling/reprocessing methods (design for biodegradability, depolymerization, dynamic bonds) to make the end-of-life of polymers more sustainable. Structure-property relationships of the resulting polymers are evaluated in several fields of application e.g. stimuli-responsive polymers, coatings, fibres, engineering plastics and biomedical materials. Growing focus on the use of artificial intelligence techniques to support and accelerate the experimental work, e.g. data interpretation and prediction of structure-property relationships.

Research lines

Biobased raw materials

Leveraging renewable resources for the synthesis of biobased monomers. Biorefinery is not part of our expertise, but we work a lot with biopolymers like lignin, starch, polysaccharides, …

Green synthesis

Developing environmentally benign synthetic routes and methodologies for sustainable polymer production

Circular materials

Creating innovative polymers with biodegradability or built-in recyclability and reprocessing capabilities.