Renewable Biopolymers

Polymers from natural sources have plenty of applications ranging from food packaging to more sophisticated such as biomedical uses. Due to increase of environmental concerns, studies related renewable polymers have been increased in last decades. Regarding the research in our group, there are two main topics: the first one is the preparation of polyelectrolyte complexes to be applied in biomedical field such as drug delivery systems and materials for bone tissue regeneration. The second one is the chemical or physical functionalization of these biopolymers with natural dye molecules and the further characterization of the read-to-use materials in terms of physicochemical, thermal, and mechanical properties as well as light stability.