In a program highlighting the international reach of the Texas Tech Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources, Associate Dean for Research Noureddine Abidi took to the stage to present one of the keynote addresses at the 6th IEEE International Conference on BioInspired Processing. His presentation, titled “Biopolymer-based composites: The case of Cellulose and Guar” was presented on Friday (Dec. 6) at the Universidad Nacional Campus Liberia in Costa Rica.
“This multidisciplinary event was an opportunity to network with scientists and students from various institutions from Costa Rica,” Abidi said. “Texas Tech University Costa Rica Campus was one of the main sponsors of this event.”
According to Stefany Solano Gonzalez, an académica e investigadora at the Universidad Nacional-Heredia, Abidi “provided a very insightful keynote talk, which opened up a lot of discussion and ideas among both students and researchers.”
Abidis talk centered on the microplastics problem and the use of cellulose and guar biopolymers to produce alternative materials such as bioplastics and packaging materials.
According to the Congress on Bioinspired Processing website, the meeting specializes in computational application to natural sciences and biologically inspired computational sciences. The annual gathering is rotated among the public universities in Costa Rica, including the Universidad de Costa Rica, Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, Universidad Nacional, Universidad Estatal a Distancia, Universidad Técnica Nacional, and Centro Nacional de Alta Tecnología.
In addition to his administrative duties, Abidi serves as managing director of the universitys Fiber & Biopolymer Research Institute and is the Leidigh Professor within the Techs Department of Plant & Soil Science. In the past his research has focused on the creation of antimicrobial textiles, self-cleaned textiles, the physicochemical characterization of pollen shells, cell wall development in cotton fibers, and the transformation of cellulose to bioproducts. Abidi has published 151 peer-review publications and generated three approved patents and nine pending patents. He holds a doctorate in theoretical, physical and analytical chemistry from the University of Montpellier II in France.
In June Abidi was honored as a Class of 2024 Senior Member by the National Academy of Inventors. Other honors include Presidents Innovation Starup Award (2023); Accelerator Fund Award (2023); TTU Innovation Hub at Research Park Prototype Fund Award (2022); the Presidents Excellence in Commercialization Award (2021), and the Discover Natural Fibres Initiative Innovation Award (2020) for his work and the patent received for his discovery of changing low-grade cotton to a cellulose gel that can be used in a wide variety of ways. Recently, Abidi was part of the team who completed the TTU Accelerator program “New American Fabric.”
Texas Techs FBRI is staffed and equipped to conduct both fundamental and applied research, ranging from small-scale testing to large-scale manufacturing. A fundamental objective is to foster greater use of natural fibers. Activities revolve around researching, testing, and evaluating natural and man-made fibers, production and evaluation of yarns and fabrics, alternative textile processing systems, dyeing and finishing, special yarn and fabric treatments, development of bioproducts from cotton cellulose, and cotton cell wall biology/biochemistry.
Located some six miles east of the main campus, the FBRI occupies 110,000 square-feet of space allowing researchers to conduct testing and evaluation from the raw fiber stage through the finished textile product. Facilities include a multimedia classroom, conference room, biopolymer research laboratory, phenomics laboratory, short staple spinning laboratory, and ginning laboratory.
CONTACT: Noureddine Abidi, Associate Dean for Research, Davis College of Agricultural Sciences & Natural Resources, Texas Tech University at (806) 742-2808 or noureddine.abidi@ttu.edu
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