Ricerc@Sapienza

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) production at pilot scale has been recently investigated
and carried out exploiting different process configurations and organic wastes. More in
detail, three pilot platforms, in Treviso (North-East of Italy), Carbonera (North-East of Italy)
and Lisbon, produced PHAs by open mixed microbial cultures (MMCs) and different
organic waste streams: organic fraction of municipal solid waste and sewage sludge
(OFMSW-WAS), cellulosic primary sludge (CPS), and fruit waste (FW), respectively.

The thermal behavior and pyrolytic kinetic analysis of main waste polymers (polypropylene (PP), polyethylene
film (PE), poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), polystyrene (PS)) and three synthetic mixtures representing commingled postconsumer
plastics wastes (CPCPWs) output from material recovery facilities were studied. Thermogravimetry (TG) pyrolysis
experiments revealed that the thermal degradation of single polymers and the synthetic mixture enriched in PP occurred in

The use of dispersions of poly(vinyl alcohol) PVA and detonation nanodiamond (DND) as novel inks for 3D printing
of variously shaped objects using a layer-by-layer additive manufacturingmethod is reported. In parallelwith
the nanocomposites preparation, we designed a 3D printing apparatus and settled protocols for the shaping of
hybrid materials, choosing PVA-DND inks as a model system to test the performances of the 3D apparatus.
Along with material design and preparation, we discuss the main factors influencing the quality of the final

Modulated temperature techniques allow to separatethe reversing and non-reversing contributions of material transitions.

The effect of the annealing few degrees above the glass transition temperature (Tda = 62 C) on the physical aging (Tpa = 51 C) of amorphous quenched poly(L-lactide) is investigated by an implementation of variable temperature Fourier transform infrared (FTIR). By using a temperature program composed of a linear heating ramp superimposed to a temperature modulation (modulated temperature FTIR), the reversing and nonreversing intensity variation of selected bands, related to highenergy gg and low-energy gt conformers, is investigated.

The thermal properties of artichoke waste, a relatively rich source of phenolic antioxidants, were investigated before and after phenolic recovery in order to assess its suitability as a source of bioproducts and bioenergy. The two main fractions of the waste, the bracts and the stems, were submitted to solvent extraction with aqueous ethanol (0, 50, 100% v/v) and the resulting extracts were assayed for total phenolics, flavonoids and antioxidant activity. The polyphenol content of stems was 51.10 ± 0.74 mg GAE/g and that of bracts was 24.58 ± 0.57 mg GAE/g.

The effects of an enzymatic treatment with cellulase and mannanase on the properties of marine microalgae
Nannochloropsis sp. were investigated. The combined use of these enzymes synergistically promoted the recovery
of lipids from the microalgae, increasing the extraction yield from 40.8 to over 73%. Untreated and enzymatically
treated microalgae were characterized by chemical analysis and by TGA/DTG, FTIR, XRD and SEM.
Significant changes were observed in the chemical composition and thermal behavior of the microalgae. The

In the present study, the influence of the temperature–time mode of crystallization (TTC) on the morphology and thermal properties of PP/Fe3O4 nanocomposite materials was investigated. The morphology of the nanocomposites prepared in different TTC mode was studied by atomic force microscope. AFM study shows that the root mean square roughness of samples is 90–95, 50, 21 nm for PP/Fe3O4@20, PP/Fe3O4@200 and PP/Fe3O4@20000 respectively. Thermo gravimetric analysis was employed to investigate the thermal stability of PP/Fe3O4 nanocomposites obtained applying different TTC modes.