W dniach 14 - 22 kwietnia 2026 r. naszą uczelnię odwiedzi pani dr Maria Laura Di Lorenzo z Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Istituto per i Polimeri, Compositi e Biomateriali (IPCB) w Pozzuoli we Włoszech. Wizyta odbywa się w ramach programu „Inicjatywa Doskonała – Współpraca Międzynarodowa - wizyty krótkoterminowe”, którego celem jest intensyfikacja międzynarodowej działalności badawczej i dydaktycznej na Politechnice Poznańskiej.
Podczas wizyty na Politechnice Poznańskiej pani dr Maria Laura Di Lorenzo wygłosi wykład otwarty pt.
„Manipulation of crystallization kinetics as a tool to engineer properties of biobased poly(L-lactic acid)”.
Termin i miejsce:
data: 15 kwietnia
godzina: 15:10
miejsce: sala 301 (budynek A5)
Jej zainteresowania badawcze obejmują krystalizację i topnienie polimerów, polimery biodegradowalne i pochodzenia biologicznego, kinetykę krystalizacji, przejście szkliste oraz mieszaniny i kompozyty polimerowe. Od 2017 roku znajduje się w zestawieniu 2% najbardziej wpływowych naukowców świata według rankingu Uniwersytetu Stanforda (Elsevier Data Repository, 2025), zajmując pierwsze miejsce wśród aktywnych badaczy CNR w kategorii „Polimery”.
Dr Di Lorenzo koordynuje projekty międzynarodowe, w tym EIC Pathfinder „BORN”, dotyczący opracowania biodegradowalnych materiałów opakowaniowych o podwyższonej odporności termicznej, a także projekty PRIN związane z projektowaniem materiałów łatwych do recyklingu oraz technologią druku 3D.
W trakcie wykładu omówione zostaną właściwości poli(L-kwasu mlekowego) (PLLA) – jednego z najważniejszych biodegradowalnych polimerów – oraz możliwości sterowania jego kinetyką krystalizacji. Przedstawione zostaną również nowoczesne metody projektowania materiałów o kontrolowanej strukturze i właściwościach, w tym innowacyjne wielowarstwowe pianki polimerowe o zwiększonej funkcjonalności i podatności na recykling.
Serdecznie zapraszamy wszystkich zainteresowanych pracowników oraz studentów.
Maria Laura Di Lorenzo
Maria Laura Di Lorenzo is Research Director at Italian National Research Council (CNR), Institute of Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials (IPCB). She is the author of three books published by Springer, three patents, and more than 150 articles published in JCR journals that have received nearly 8,000 citations (Scopus).
Dr. Di Lorenzo's main research interests focus on polymer crystallization and melting, bio-based and biodegradable polymers, crystallization kinetics, glass transition, polymer blends and composites.
Since 2017 (first edition), Maria Laura Di Lorenzo is in World's Top 2% Scientists, the ranking developed by Stanford University and published in the Elsevier Data Repository (August 2025), ranking 1st among CNR active researchers in “Polymers”. DOI: 10.17632/btchxktzyw.8.
She is currently Coordinator of EIC-PATHFINDER "BORN" project (Biobased thermal-resistaNt food packaging), Coordinator of PRIN 2022 PNRR "DesiRe" project (Design for Recyclability: mono-material multi-graded semi-crystalline polymer foams), and head of CNR unit of PRIN 2022 "0DeF3" project (Zero-defect Fused Filament Fabrication).
Dr. Di Lorenzo is Senior Editor of Thermal Advances (Elsevier) and member of the Editorial Board of: Thermochimica Acta (Elsevier), Thermo (MDPI), Reviews on Advanced Materials Science (De Gruyter), Polymers (MDPI), International Journal of Polymer Science (Wiley), Advances in Materials Science and Engineering (Wiley).
Manipulation of crystallization kinetics as a tool to engineer properties of biobased poly(l-lactic acid)
Poly(l-lactic acid) (PLLA) is the most widely used biobased, biodegradable/compostable and biocompatible synthetic polymer, increasingly adopted as a sustainable alternative to conventional petrochemical plastics [1,2]. PLLA applications span from food packaging and agriculture to high-value biomedical devices [3]. Despite its many advantages, PLLA exhibits intrinsically slow crystallization kinetics, which represent a technological limit. Under typical industrial processing conditions, which require fast cooling, the slow crystallization prevents the development of adequate crystallinity fractions. As a result, PLLA molded products often display limited mechanical properties and poor thermal resistance [3].
Enhancement of PLLA crystallization kinetics is essential to overcome these drawbacks, unfortunately the huge research efforts devoted to date have allowed only partial improvement, not sufficient to guarantee adequate crystallinity upon industrial processing. Sizable improvement of PLLA crystallization rate is the main goal of the BORN Project (GA 101223095), funded by European Union under EIC-Pathfinder program [4]. This will be achieved via development of a crystal nucleating agent with sizably enhanced efficiency compared to the current formulations, able to allow PLLA crystallization upon industrial processing. Compared to the otherwise amorphous polymer, semicrystalline PLLA exhibits significantly improved thermal resistance, up to 100 °C, broadening the range of possible applications. In food packaging, this may translate into compostable microwaveable containers for ready-to-eat meals, or cost-effective cups for hot beverages, contributing to the transition toward high-performance, sustainable plastic alternatives.
Moreover, proper manipulation of PLLA crystallization behavior can be transformed from a constraint into a powerful engineering tool, unlocking new processing technologies. This is exampled by fabrication of multilayered monomaterial foams, attained via tailored crystal formation in only a part of the material before foaming. A layered crystalline structure was developed in an initially amorphous PLLA disk, by precisely regulating the process parameters that control mass diffusion of the foaming agent. This allowed to fill the polymer with a gradient of foaming agent, able to induce crystal formation in a part of the sample that became not foamable, and bubble formation in the parts exposed to lower amounts of foaming agent. PLLA foams with multilayered structured morphology, made of alternating layers of either crystalline or amorphous materials, and of either foamed or unfoamed parts, were produced with a single polymer, which made them easily recyclable [5]. This surpasses the up-to-date state of art of multilayered foams, which are currently made with alternating layers of different materials, hardly and costly to recycle.
References
- M.L. Di Lorenzo, R Androsch, Eds. Synthesis, Structure and Properties of Poly (lactic acid), Adv. Polym Sci., 279 (2018). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64230-7
- M.L. Di Lorenzo, R Androsch, Eds. Thermal properties of bio-based polymers., Adv. Polym Sci., 283 (2019). Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39962-7.
- M.L. Di Lorenzo, R Androsch, Eds. Industrial Applications of Poly (lactic acid), Adv. Polym. Sci. 282. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75459-8.
- https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101223095
- A. Longo, E. Di Lorenzo, L. Miele, A. Bernardi, E Di Maio, M.L. Di Lorenzo, J. Polym. Env. (2026), under review.