1. Amino acid-based polymers

Amino acid is a biorenewable resource and mainly produced by fermentation of hydrolysis products of biomass. The use of amino acid as the starting materials to produce novel biomass-based polymers is of great significance for not only providing a new direction for the amino acid industry but also tempering our dependence on fossil oil. Our research mainly focuses on large-scale synthesis of functional polymers from glutamic acid and lysine.

2.Cellulose-based polymers

• Hydrolysis of cellulose
Biorefinery provides an alternative approach to solving the current dependence on fossil fuels for energy and chemical building blocks. Our research focuses on the development of new strategies to efficiently hydrolyze celluloses to industry-relevant intermediates, e.g. 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF).

• Functional materials from cellulose
Functionalization of cellulose is difficult due to its poor solubility in common solvents. Our research focuses on the development of new strategies to functionalize celluloses with uniformly distributed functional groups, with an emphasis on: regioselective functionalization of cellulose and cellulose-based chiral stationary phase .