With continuously increasing consumption of polymeric composites in a wide range of fields, such as automotive, transport, electrics and
electronic, and consumer goods, etc., the challenge related with their environmental impact, sustainability and fire safety becomes even
more urgent and important. This proposal, DIGIBIOFAM, presents an interdisciplinary and innovative approach to design and develop a
new generation of bio-based flame retardant system for sustainable polymers via a combination of green preparation and digital design.
Alternatives to fossil resources have to be found since the continuous depletion of oil deposits contributes to the climate change, and is a
potential source of international confrontations. In this context, the development of bio-based, high performance and sustainable polymers
has attracted plenty of attention in the past 20 years. Up to now, the traditional approaches to develop such high-performance materials
still rely on a large number of experiments, and are labor intensive. Therefore, the overarching objective of DIGIBIOFAM project is to
develop a bio-based flame retardant system for bio-based composite materials by implementing novel and cost-efficient data-driven
experimentation strategies. Specifically, three objectives will be addressed: i) novel bio-based flame retardants will be developed from green and natural sources such as chitosan, phytic acid (PA), nanoclay, etc, due to their environmental friendliness and low carbon footprint; ii) data-driven, machine learning-based experimentation strategies such as Bayesian optimization will be implemented to achieve cost-efficient identification of optimal formulations and other supervised machine learning models will be employed in exploration of structure-property relationships; iii) New Bio-based flame retardant/Bio-based polymer composites will be demonstrated and fully characterized. The to-be-developed biocomposites will be of crucial importance to many industries, which urgently need to substitute widely used fossil fueled-derived materials with sustainable replacements, while not compromising the fire-safety, mechanical and other properties. Furthermore, if successful, the developed data-driven design strategies can be applied in new material design workflows, including ones for robotized material discovery labs of the future. The aims of the project fit very well within the ambition of the Spanish Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy 2021-2027. In particular, this 7-year plan highlights the need to address the strategic lines Advanced materials and new manufacturing techniques (subline Development of advanced composite materials), Modelling and mathematical analysis and new mathematical solutions for science and technology (sub-line New transversal tools (of analysis, statistics and data science) for the resolution of scientific and technological problems), and Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (sub-line Applications of AI and robotics). Also, the potential applications of the materials developed within the Project lead to impacts in many other strategic lines such as climate, energy and mobility.