Green materials for a greener world: ATHANASSIA ATHANASSIOU at TEDxRoma

An innovative physicist and researcher, since January 2011 Athanassiou has been a Senior Researcher in the Smart Materials Group in the Department of Nanophysics of the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa. She works with Smart Materials; an example of such being a special sponge that specifically absorbs oil; this sponge has the potential to save our oceans in case of ecological disasters. Very recently she developed novel plastic materials from vegetable wastes that can replace synthetic polymers. These plastics have minimal environmental impact because unlike the synthetic polymers are biodegradable and on top give a solution to the problem of waste management.

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