BioSupPack is set up to contribute to the European bio-based circular economy by developing Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) based packaging solutions derived from residues and by demonstrating a viable recycling, closed-loop process for these bio-based plastic materials. The project has been launched officially at the virtual kick-off meeting on 15 and 16 June 2021, bringing together 17 partners from 8 countries. BioSupPack receives funding from the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI-JU) and Horizon 2020 framework.
BioSupPack is an excellent example of how research & innovation can address the current challenges that are threatening our world & society and contribute to the European Green Deal goals. BioSupPack will deliver green and circular solutions by transforming agro-food industry by-products into bio-based packaging solutions while addressing the recyclability of end products. [Ms Ruiz Sierra - BBI-JU]
Coordinated by the plastics technology institute AIMPLAS (Spain) and equipped with a budget of 8.8 million Euro, BioSupPack will develop a demonstrative process for the production and enzymatic recycling of environmentally safe, superior, and versatile rigid packaging solutions based on the novel bio-based polymer family of PHAs.
In several interlinked working groups, the project consortium partners will obtain PHAs from brewer's spent grain and other monomers from enzymatic recycling of PHA packaging waste. Based on these PHA compounds, several rigid packaging prototypes with tailored barrier properties will be designed at a pilot scale and tailored towards the feasible waste collection and separation options. The packaging solutions will include injection-moulded PHA and biocomposite demonstrators as well as well as PHA-coated fibre-based service packaging and ready meal trays.
Eventually, the project partners will develop an enzymatic recycling process to recover PHA from these new packaging solutions – while the paperboard fraction can be re-pulped. This will demonstrate the feasibility of upcycling postindustrial waste within the production process. The prototypes will be assessed in view of their environmental and socio-economic sustainability and the safety of the new bio-based packaging.
Project partners
Acknowledgements
Supported by more than 25 % private equity as a BBI-JU, BioSupPack receives funding from European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Bio-Based Industries Consortium under grant agreement No 101023685.