Alejandro Heredia Guerrero has just received the Extraordinary Doctorate Award from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Malaga. The award was granted for the thesis entitled “Molecular Self-Assembly and Synthesis of Biomimetic Materials from Hydroxy Acids derived from Plant Cutins”.

Alejandro carried out his doctoral work at the Institute of Materials Sciences in Seville with a JAE-Pre scholarship during the years 2008-2011, under the supervision of Senior Scientist José Jesús Benítez Jiménez.
In collaboration with Professor Antonio Heredia Bayona of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry of the University of Malaga, in the thesis he has studied the reactivity at different scales of the main monomer of the plant cutin of tomato fruits. Cutin is the most abundant biopolyester in the plant kingdom that forms part of the cuticle, the outermost protective film of the plant epidermis.
The first part of the thesis, more academic, has consisted of the study of the molecular self-assembly of this molecule and the comparison with other similar ones. The strong inclination towards two-dimensional ordering and self-polymerization under environmental conditions, made one think that they would originate a film of a hydrophobic and chemically inert material that would act as a barrier with the environment.
The second part, with a much more applied orientation, has consisted of obtaining plastics with tailor-made properties from these monomers, obtaining new completely biodegradable and non-toxic polymeric materials. These materials have been proposed as packaging for the food industry. This part of the thesis has received some notoriety in some media.

See:
“The plastic of the future” in National Geographic
“The skin of the tomato is transformed into plastic” in Muy Interesante