description
- Plastic is one of the preferred materials for manufacturing high volume consumer products and more particularly packaging thanks to its physical, mechanical, thermal or barrier properties. However, existing global plastic industry is mainly a petrochemical-based industry, bringing bad environmental footprint. Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a group of biopolymers that are now widely recognized as attractive substitutes to fossil fuel derived plastics in a wide range of applications. Unfortunately, no sustainable value chain exists in Europe, and production schemes developed elsewhere in the world appear highly questionable from an environmental and ethical standpoint. The NENU2PHAR project aims at bridging this crucial gap in the EU industry, within an inclusive approach that will address the whole PHA-based plastic value chain, targeting high volume consumer products. The NENU2PHAR project gathers 17 partners (5 large industrials, 6 SMEs, 5 RTOs and 1 cluster), leaders in the different fields of research, from biomass development to formulation of biopolymer up to plastic processes. First, bio-source will be tackled by developing and optimised production of PHA biopolymer thanks to the optimisation of carbon feedstock from micro-algae biomass and selection of bacteria strains. Then, innovative polymer processing options will generate different structures with various bulk-surface properties, and various end of life properties. Market uptake of this new PHA will be supported by a competitive cost (5€/kg for PHA compounds), high purity product and processes optimised for PHA bioplastic to tackle functional properties of high volume consumer product better than fossil-based counterparts. 8 PHA-based products will be developed and benchmarked to their fossil-based counterparts. Full validation of the end of life scenarios and environmental footprint will be studied based on biodegradability, compostability or recyclability of the bioplastics formulated.