Soft Matter Composite
Coordinator : 'Belgium Builds Back Circular’ from the ‘National Recovery and Resilience Plan’ subsidized by the EU and managed by SPF-economy Förster
UCLouvain coordinator : Evelyne van Ruymbeke (BSMA)
Softcomp was born as a Network of Excellence (NoE) supported by the EU aiming to establish a knowledge base for an intelligent design of functional and nanoscale soft matter composites. From December 2009 it has a durable structure organized as a Consortium, which is self-financed by the partners.
The Network of Excellence (NoE) SoftComp aims to establish a knowledge base for an intelligent design of functional and nanoscale soft matter composites. It will do so in overcoming the present 2-fold fragmentation of this important field for the development of new materials at the interface of non-living and living matter where the delicate principles of self-organisation in polymeric, surfactant and colloidal matter are ubiquitous.
At present the field is fragmented along the disciplinary lines of theoretical and experimental physics, computer simulation, chemistry and applied biology. On the other hand we are witnessing another fragmentation following the material structures themselves in terms of polymers, colloids, surfactants, membranes and biopolymers.
PFAS-free
Belgium Builds Back Circular’ from the ‘National Recovery and Resilience Plan’ subsidized by the EU and managed by SPF-economy
Promoters: Profs. Karine Glinel and Alain M. Jonas
Partners: UGhent, ULiège, Centexbel (coordinator)
The goal of PFAS-FREE is to develop safe and sustainable performant water repellent solutions for textile that are superior to current commercially available ‘PFAS-free/fluorine-free’ solutions. PFAS-FREE focus on fluorine-free water repellents is motivated by their lower environmental impact (PFAS are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic), lower human health impact (e.g. cancer) and their economic importance (50-80 kTon of PFAS are annually used for functional applications within textile) as well as the lack of environmentally sustainable, performant and economically feasible alternatives. To develop these solutions, we will combine biobased materials and textile surface structuring. As main ingredients we start from fatty acids derivatives for developing abrasion resistant hydrophobic polymers in combination with nanostructuring of (finished) textiles. To select materials and application methods, we will follow an inclusive Safe- and Sustainable-by-Design strategy.
