RT Journal Article
T1 Moving forward into a second golden age: Innovative and sustainable production of reprocessed starch aerogels
A1 Blanco Vales, María
A1 Rodríguez-Quesada, Laria F.
A1 Passos, Cláudia P.
A1 Carracedo Pérez, María
A1 Starbird, Ricardo
A1 López Iglesias, Clara
A1 García González, Carlos A.
K1 Reprocessing
K1 Starch aerogels
K1 Bioaerogels
K1 Circular economy
K1 Supercritical CO2
AB Bioaerogels are nanostructured materials with potential applications from biomedicine to environmental sciences. Their production at large scale needs to cause minimal environmental impact. Thus, designing strategies for a successful end-of-life handling is essential. Reprocessing and recycling are favorable alternatives to disposal, allowing the material to remain in use by maintaining its original properties. This work studies the reprocessing of polysaccharide aerogels into new aerogels for the first time. Three different reprocessing methods for starch aerogels are proposed, all of which avoid the use of energy-intensive techniques and hazardous reagents. These methods employ sustainable approaches (grinding, redissolving, ambient, and oven drying), and use mild, safe reagents like water and ethanol. The original and reprocessed aerogels were obtained in all cases by supercritical CO2 drying. They were then characterized and compared with each other in terms of physicochemical properties (composition, texture, crystallinity, thermal and mechanical stability). The prepared aerogels, regardless of the followed reprocessing strategy, were very similar to the original. This paves the way for their application in different production scenarios following circular economy principles.
PB Elsevier
SN 0144-8617
YR 2025
FD 2025-10-10
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/45762
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/45762
LA eng
NO Carbohydrate Polymers Volume 371, 1 January 2026, 124516
NO Work funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 [grant PID2023-151340OB-I00], Xunta de Galicia [ED431C2022/2023, ED481D-2024-008 and GAIN-Ignicia Programme 2021, ECOBONE] and ERDF/EU. Work carried out in the framework of the ECO-AERoGELS COST Innovators' Grant (ref. IG18125) and funded by the European Commission. The financial support from PT national funds (FCT/MCTES) of LAQV-REQUIMTE/University of Aveiro (UID/50006 -Laboratório Associado para a Química Verde - Tecnologias e Processos Limpos) research unit is acknowledged.
DS Minerva
RD 8 jun 2026