Luminescent materials are among the most commonly used materials in our daily lives. However, the production of these materials does not currently follow a global “green” strategy for materials production. So far, luminescent materials are mainly produced from fossil resources, which leads to additional environmental problems. The use of biomass as a luminescent material could reduce the dependence on fossil resources in the luminescent materials industry and lead to a desirable “green” production of luminescent materials. One of the most promising biomass materials for the production of luminescent materials is lignin, which has a complex polymer structure consisting of three different aromatic units. The complex aromatic structure is a good starting point for using lignin as a luminescent material. Despite its attractive properties and characteristics, lignin luminescent materials are not been sufficiently studied and researched. The main goal of this project is to functionalize different types of lignin and transform them into lignin quantum dots. For transformation into quantum dots, we will use lignin derived from different biomasses (hardwood, softwood, and grass) and different types of lignin depolymerization. Our novel lignin luminescent materials, lignin quantum dots, will be designed and synthesized to obtain materials with improved luminescent properties, with color emission different from the blue color, and with enhanced quantum yield.
Project partners: Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the University of Ljubljana (coordinator), Jožef Stefan Institute, and Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
